


The Yesterday Special

by tori1116



Series: The Fuzz(y Logic) - The Jayroy Cop Drama [3]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe-Cops, Asses In Love, Bisexual Character, But You Won't Really See Any of Her Working In Here, Donna is an Interpol Agent, Fluff and Crack, Getting Together, In Fact You Won't Really See Any of Them Working, Jason is a Detective, M/M, No Need To Go and Check It Out If You Haven't Read It, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-52 Characterization, Roy is a Detective, Roy's Got a House In Gotham, Sort Of, The Reason For That is in Pt.2 of This series, This Could Easily Be Read As a Standalone Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24020293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tori1116/pseuds/tori1116
Summary: Just a quick little episode, set place at the very end of the second year of the partnership between GCPD Detective Roy and Detective Jason, where all the serious dramas in this series are in the past or yet to come.Two years ago Jason has returned to Gotham and joined the GCPD for nothing but his grim revenge, and after succeeding his revenge, he decided to stay at the GCPD and try learning to live as a cop with his cop partner Roy's help, and now he and Roy are entering the third year of their partnership; the two of them are pretty much a couple by this point, only neither of them realizes that or is willing to admit their feeling for the other, so instead of asking each other out, they just kind of fight over Roy's ex-girlfriend Donna like a couple of dumbasses.-“I will crush you.”“You and what? Your army of freckles?”
Relationships: JayRoy - Relationship, Past Canon Relationships Mentioned, Roy Harper/Donna Troy-Past Relationship, Roy Harper/Jason Todd
Series: The Fuzz(y Logic) - The Jayroy Cop Drama [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1398961
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

It all began when one afternoon--right as he and his partner had finished their case of the month and settled back to the Major Crimes Unit from the arrest of their main guy, whom Roy couldn’t be more pleased to see pay for his many crimes, one of which being sending some goons after them a few nights ago and consequently putting his beautiful ride into repairing--a good friend of his popped in to pay him a little surprise visit at the station.

He was just sitting down at his own desk across his partner’s in the MCU office and casually discussing with the guy about his price for doing his share of the paperwork of their newly concluded case--“Alright,” said Jason coolly, after a brief cogitation, “I can do it for some burritos and shakes.”

“Yes, but can you promise to do it, properly, like how you do your own paper, and not deliberately stink the whole thing and make me seem like a giant ass in front of the captain?” asked Roy musingly in reply, still remembering quite clearly the stunt his younger detective partner, who was clearly not as much as a grownup as he appeared to be, had pulled on him the last time when he had agreed to do his paper.

It was almost two years ago, and sure the guy had helped filling up his reports and stuff a handful of times since, and those were all pretty much decently written, but that would only happen when he felt done with Roy’s groaning about his many stupid homework and never except that one time had he done it by request.

A faint wry smirk emerged shortly on the corner of Jason’s mouth, which made clear of the fact that he had absolutely no regret whatsoever for his past doing, but was indeed still quite proud of himself for the hot load of craps he had previously written in Roy’s name, by which Roy had been well humiliated and would’ve been hell of annoyed, if not that he could see plainly that his partner, who had always made it a point since his arrival at the station to keep him at arm’s length up until then, had only put in such effort to mess with him because he had finally come to consider him a real friend, or that he had been so impressed by the ingenuity of its dumb writing (“--I was just trying to write the thing in _your_ style. We don’t want people to find out that you’d asked someone else to do your own homework instead of doing it yourself like a responsible grown-ass man, now do we?” was the wise explanation Jason had given him almost two years ago, when Roy had walked right up to him from the captain’s office and stood solemnly reciting to him at his desk some of the most awful, embarrassing things in that steaming crap of a case report which Captain Gordon had just thrown back to his face, and asking him just what kind of _putz_ he had reckoned would’ve put words like “ _boobies_ ” in an official police report).

It had long since come to Roy that, underneath all his craftiness and his hard poise and his menacing tactics, there’s a genuine huge ass in his partner, which his friendship with Roy had apparently got the magical power to stir up and make grow.

Before the guy could say anything to him in reply--which was either going to be sarcastic, or dumb, or sarcastic _and_ dumb, depending on how much of an ass he was feeling like just this moment--a sweet familiar voice called out to Roy from the front of the office, throwing him off to immediate exultation and turning his head at once. 

There by the office door, stood the one and only “ ** _Donna Troy_** _\--!_ ”--in a smart black pant suit, with her thick shiny dark hair and her long legs and her strong arms and her lovely, lovely smile, not so much as the same beautiful young girl Roy had once fallen deeply in love with, but now an even more beautiful _woman_.

With a broad grin on his face, Roy moved up quickly from his own seat, opening his arms as wild as he could for the great hug he was for sure to share with the good old Wonder Chick--“If you call me that again, then I’m going to hit you, Roy, and it’s going to hurt you, _way more_ , than it’s going to hurt me,” Donna mildly warned him as they were hugging--correction, Wonder _Babe_ , who had evolved over the years from the young babe he had originally known from the youth camp almost a decade ago (one of the bestest times in his life) to Agent Troy from the Interpol, and, as she presently explained to him, was currently in Gotham for some Interpol business and therefore had decided to drop by and see a old good friend.

Having shortly introduced Donna to his partner and stood chatting with her by his desk for a bit, Roy and Donna then naturally decided to go sit down together and catch up some more over a cup of coffee.

“Can I join?” asked Jason from his own desk in the office, addressing to Donna directly with a certain friendly interest in his blue eyes and also an unusually nice smile on his face, which should’ve been awfully alarming to Roy, only at the moment he was far too excited from seeing a dear friend, he kind of just forgot the fact that his partner didn’t normally looked and talked all friendly and nice unless he had something wicked in his mind. 

Sure enough, Donna, a genuinely nice and friendly person, would love to get to know Roy’s partner in the GCPD, and with a responding smile on her face, she answered quickly to the guy that he was most welcome to join; and like a putz, Roy made no objection to that but just simply agreed with her.

Thus, a few moments later, all three of them were sitting together in the coffee shop near the station, where Roy and his partner often stopped by upon their way to work in the mornings for a nice cup of pick-me-up and some breakfast pastries.

It was one of those lazy days in between cases where Roy and his partner had got basically nothing to do except for filling up all those forms and reports in the office or going through some of their cold cases again or idly beating around the streets while waiting for a new case or some emergency to come up, and they could very much just lay back a little at the moment and even spend a couple of hours sitting in a coffee shop with a friend if they wanted; Donna, on the other hand, had got a good deal of preparations she needed to get back to in about an hour or so for her working at night, so the three of them didn’t stay long at the place, but they had a very pleasant time in there, just old friends catching up on each other’s life and exchanging information about their mutual friends, while new acquaintances getting to know one another.

During the conversation, Donna didn’t let on much about her current working in the city, for the reason that it was classified, but just briefly describe her life in the Interpol in general--It was clear to Roy that it was an awful hard job she was doing, and she said so herself that she felt like she could hardly ever be home anymore with all the flying around the world and staying out on missions; but still, Roy could tell by the way Donna spoke about her job that she enjoyed it deeply and was doing great with it, and he was happy for her, happy to see that the girl he had known since the time they had met was meant to do great and be out saving the world was living up to her full potential and out saving the world like the superwoman she was.

After they had exchanged some details about each of their current lives, he and Donna had chatted about what Dick and the rest of their old gang were up to these days, and they had told Jason the story of how the two of them had met in the old youth camp and also some other funny stupid stories with their gang in the place, which Jason, who, as far as Roy knew, had never before been to any camp or done much of that kind of normal young people activities since practically ever and usually showed very little interest in doing or even hearing about that sort of things, had seemed to find incredibly fascinating, especially when Donna was the one telling the stories, and he had listened attentively and even happily joined in to the conversation without making any sort of sarcastic remarks that he always loved to make whenever Roy was telling him some inane stories.

Two years Roy and his partner had known each other, and never before once had he seen the guy being so...like a normally nice and charming person.

Sure the guy could be a lot nice and gentle with females and children, but _that_...whatever that was in the coffee shop--that was a new side of him, which was interesting, but in a weird sort of way that Roy just wasn’t sure whether or not he dug it. 

At last, when it’s time for them to take leave, Donna said on walking out of the coffee shop that maybe they should go grab a dinner later when she’s free from her work, and just as Roy was about to reply to her with a happy “just tell me when and where”--“It’s a date,” answered Jason delightedly, once again with that weirdly nice and charming smile he had been flashing a lot at Donna the whole time, which Roy finally began to catch the meaning of.

“Okay, how about tomorrow then? I think I can be free at eight tomorrow evening, is that good for you guys?” replied Donna, who was obviously far too nice to explain to Roy’s partner that she had only meant to grab a dinner with _Roy_ , alone.

“Eight’s fine. You need me to find a place? I can get us a table in a good restaurant for tomorrow if you don’t have any place in mind.”

“No, go ahead. I’m not really that familiar with this city to know where any of the good restaurants is anyway.” 

“Well if you want to know more about this city, I can show you around after the dinner.”

“That’s nice,” said Donna, smiling and turning to Roy, who had been looking back and forth between his partner and Donna on the side in skeptical wonder during their little exchange, “isn’t that nice, Roy?”

A laugh broke quickly out of Roy’s mouth; he shifted his eyes directly to Donna.

“ _So_ nice,” he replied, then his eyes moved once more to his partner beside him, and his hand playfully reached out and gave the guy a quick significant _squeeze_ to his shoulder; “--My boy Jason, the _nice_ guy.”

“You know me,” returned Jason, calmly and nicely, his own hand moving up onto Roy’s shoulder and strongly squeezing back.

Roy gave it another laugh.

In a bit of bemusement, Donna regarded the two of them shortly, before she flashed them another one of her lovely smile, and told them to send her the address of the restaurant later.

As Donna was setting about to leave, Jason the “nice guy” promptly took a step forward--which was the furthest he could get at the moment for Roy’s hand was still holding a firm grip to his shoulder and keeping him in place--and he asked Donna if she would want a ride and offered to give her one.

“My bike’s just right at the station,” he said, “It’ll only take us a minute to get to it.” 

“No, it’s okay. I’ve already rented a bike for myself when I got here, it’s just right there,” she said, gesturing curtly with her hand at the general direction of where she had parked her rented bike. “But thank you, Jason. You’re really nice.”

In answer to that, Jason gave her a smile and a simple, agreeable “I try.”

A moment later, after they had both exchanged goodbyes with Donna and watched her away from outside the coffee shop, Roy, still grasping his partner lightly by his shoulder, drew around to face the guy directly.

“I suppose you must’ve picked that up by now, since it’s pretty much obvious; but in case you haven’t, Donna and I used to be a _couple_ ,” he informed Jason kindly, “The real one, as in we could’ve been _married_.”

“But you aren’t married,” Jason wisely pointed out. “You wanna talk about why she didn’t marry you? Is that why you’re telling me this right now?”

“No,” replied Roy, with the good articulation and patient placidity of an adult trying to talk to a wayward and somewhat dim child, “I’m telling you this, Jason, is because I saw what you’re doing, and it’s not normally considered _cool_ to make a move on someone who used to be in a serious relationship with your friend. Sure you _can_ do that if you’re really into that someone, but you have to at least talk to the guy first, you get me? You have to ask for permission and stuff.”

Jason moved his head slightly in a thoughtful manner. “So, what you’re saying is, if I like Donna Troy and I want to date her or anything, I’d need to get _your_ permission first.”

Roy gave him an affirmative smile. 

“As if you’re my _mother,_ ” added on Jason by elucidation, “one that entirely unlike my dead mother, whom I grew up with and had never needed to ask for permission for anything.”

Roy stared fixedly at his partner for a moment.

“...You know, sometimes it’s kind of really cute when you’re trying to be cute in your own little dark, snarky way,” slowly he started; “This is not of one of those times. Have you no respect for the bro codes?”

“That’s the thing, I don’t make bros.”

“Oh really, so you and I, we’re not _..._ we’re not _bros_ ,” returned Roy, laughing a little, “Yeah, yeah no, that totally makes sense. After all, it’s not like we’ve spent the last two years working with each other at the police station almost every damn day and hanging out with each other all the time.”

The mild annoyance on Jason’s face plainly exhibited the fact that he did not think sarcasm was an especially good color on Roy. “Why are you making such a big deal about this?” he retorted, a little gruffly, “You still have feelings for her? Is that it?”

“Well,” began Roy, and then he stopped right away as he realized that he hadn’t actually got the answer.

He hadn’t quite thought about whether or not he still had feelings for Donna until now; it had been almost a decade since the two of them had broken up, and sure he was thrilled to see her and he still cared a great deal about her--but was he still _in love_ with her? Did he still wish to spend the rest of his life with her and build a family with her? Did his heart still ache at the memories of her like it used to? Had he still been thinking about her, any more than he had been thinking about his last girlfriend Kendra? Than _Jade_?

Did he want to try it again with her? 

Initially, he was going to tell Jason the truth and say that he didn’t really know; only as he was looking closely at his partner’s face, something came over him--which was quite possibly his annoyance at the guy’s complete disrespect for the bro codes and his awful, infuriating attitude.

He guessed that it shouldn’t really have bothered him much that Jason had an interest in Donna and wanted to make a move on her--sure the guy was not at all a regular guy, but a guy he was still, and Donna was a goddess; everyone at the station had all had their eyes on her when she had visited the place earlier, including Renee, who had run into the three of them in the hallway just as they had set out to leave for the coffee shop, and had only remembered to stop gawking and get on moving, when Bullock, standing by her in the hallway, had kindly brought her back to her senses by letting out a quick cough and giving her a significant nudge with his elbow.

Anyone who had any interest in women would find Donna attractive; it was only natural, there’s nothing wrong about that. In fact, he might’ve easily told his partner to go for it and take a shot at Donna, if not for his damn attitude.

Damn, his _attitude_.

“...So what if I still have feelings for her?” answered Roy lastly, staring right into his partner’s face with a certain challenging smirk on his lips, “What if I want to get back with her, Jaybird? What if I still want to marry her, what’re you going to do?”

Much to his amusement, Jason seemed to be taken aback by his answer. “I...” came weakly out of the guy’s mouth, as he stood fixedly meeting Roy’s eyes, looking somewhat vexed with his brows creased together into a little frown.

Then finally he shook his head to himself, looking away from Roy’s face, and said reluctantly, “All right, Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine. I know you can’t handle the competition anyway, so I’ll--”

“Wait. Wait, wait just a second,” Roy cut him off promptly, trying in vain to not break into laughter, “What are you...? You think I can’t handle the competition? What...? A Competition? With you? You think...you’re a competition? To me? I can’t even...boy, aren’t you _adorable_ sometimes!”

“Yeah,” replied Jason coldly, returning right away to his original attitude. “So I take that that you don’t mind the competition at all.”

“Well I mean, she’s a real person, not just some _prize_ that can be won in a competition--”

“Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Roy went on, “But, if one of us _is_ going to win her over, I think we both know who that’ll be. I dated her, remember?”

“I remember that you two broke up like ages ago,” Jason plainly replied, and seeming to think that it pretty much explained itself and not bothering to elaborate on that, he then started away from their initial spot outside the coffee shop to their way back to the station.

Quickly and closely Roy followed up. “Seriously, man, don’t do this. You can’t compete with me on this.”

Jason returned with cool nonchalance, “Because you’ll be crying when I crush your ass and it may get ugly?”

“Ha. No, no no Jaybird,” responded Roy, letting out a curt chuckle. “You’re not...you’re not listening. Why aren’t you listening, Jay? You don’t really want to do this with me. If we’re really going to do this, _I_ will crush you.”

“You and what? Your army of freckles?”

An stupendous sense of incredulity fell upon Roy in an instant; on the sidewalk he stopped down, seizing Jason on the spot with him by grasping out to the guy’s arm abruptly and pulling him right to his face. 

“Alright, you wanna play with me, punk?” said Roy sneeringly in a low, fierce whisper, “Let’s play.”

Jason answered him with a faint smirk.

***

Things between Roy and his partner, whom he wasn’t especially fond of right this moment, had not remotely cooled down before their dinner with Donna, which happened in an crazily hot and usually fully booked restaurant that Jason, apparently not at all afraid to go big on this sort of things, had managed to make a reservation with and get a pretty sweet table by using what Roy could only assume to be unlawful means.

It was certainly not the sort of restaurants Roy would go for if he was planning a date. Personally, he preferred places that were more relax and cozy with no dress code whatsoever, and he knew for a fact that Donna would’ve preferred that kind of places too--She had never been the sort of person who needed fancy dinners; she could have a fun enough time just by eating at a Taco Bell or eating pizza on a couch in front of the TV, which was exactly why Roy would’ve fallen in love with her in the first place, asides from the fact that she was incredibly smart and beautiful. He couldn’t imagine how he would be in love and spend the rest of his life with someone who would only be happy with him if he constantly romanced them with flowers and gifts and fancy dinner dates and all the other similar stuff that just really didn’t matter much to him; all that truly mattered to him was that the person he loved loved him back and would love him just the same even if he wasn’t that perfect romantic person, and would enjoy their time together even though they were just eating pizza while watching TV at home.

Nonetheless, it was still rather fun to put on a suit and have dinner at an exquisite restaurant every once in a while; the food in the restaurant was just incredible, and Donna definitely looked good in the starry black dress she had put on for their dinner, and Jason too, he supposed, had cleaned up nicely, and was looking very good, for an asshole.

It was a fine dinner, all in all; surely it had annoyed Roy a great deal that, as they had set out earlier to leave the station for the restaurant, his partner had decided to be a complete asshole and refused to give him a ride in his bike and so he had had to take a cab and get to the place on his own, but since he was the bigger and obviously more mature person, he didn’t let the annoyance get to him; and even though there might be some elbow-shoving (while the two of them had still been busy stopping the other from keeping pace with Donna by nudging at each other behind her on their walking to the table, Donna had already helped herself to the side seat at the square table with three chairs. Jason had attempted to take the seat next to her but Roy had elbowed him back and taken the chair right out of his grasp), or some kicking each other under the table (“Excuse me,” had said Jason politely, when one of his big stinky feet had kicked Roy’s shank quite heavily in his settling down on the last seat next to Roy and across Donna), or a little accidentally getting scraps of food onto each other’s clothes (“Oops,” had murmured Roy regretfully, as he had spilled a bit of his mashed potato onto the front of Jason’s suit while Jason had been leaning forward to talk to Donna across the table), still he would say that he and Jason had pretty much acted like civilized people towards one another, and they certainly did not get in each other’s face like a couple of asses, not at all until they finished the main course, and just before they could get to dessert, Jason casually brought back the subject of how he should give Donna a tour in the city after dinner.

Roy cut in swiftly on him, addressing to Donna with his customary easy smile, which she had told him in the past was really cute, “ _I_ can show you around if you want.”

“With what ride?” drawled Jason from the side, his lips stretching up into a little smile of his own, which was customarily sarcastic. “You just sent your car to the auto shop, Roy, after you crashed it, by being a lousy driver.”

“You know why my car is in the garage and that was not because I’m a lousy driver,” returned Roy sternly, throwing a sharp sideways look at the guy. “And it doesn’t matter that my car is still getting fixed. I can easily get us a ride out there.”

“So you can get a ride, but can you really show this city to anyone? Really?” questioned Jason, mildly but with strong, transparent doubt. “You’re not a native like me. What do you know about Gotham, my hometown?”

“Your ‘hometown’, is that how you like to call it?” in an dry, ironic voice Roy replied, switching to face his partner directly, “‘Cause I kind of remember the last time you talked about this city, you called it a ‘shithole’. And also, I think you’re forgetting the fact that I’ve already been in town for _four years_.”

Jason shrugged. “It’s a very complicated city. You can’t just learn all about it in a couple of years, you’ll have to spent a lifetime to really get to know the place,” he said with profundity, then looking right into Roy’s eyes, he nicely added on, “This is not Star, _Star boy_ \--We’re in Gotham. If Donna here want to get to know Gotham, I’m pretty sure she’ll need a Gotham man.”

“First of all, I’m not from Star. I’m from Arizona,” Roy plainly reminded him. “Second of all, I think you meant Gotha _mite_.”

“I know what I meant.”

At which, Roy let out a curt chuckle and moved his head a little in obvious amusement.

Then he drew forward swiftly; his smile vanished and a menacing look took over his face, as he brought his arm up on the table, leaning over to Jason, and whispered right in his ear, “You need to back off, Gotham boy.”

“It’s Gotham _man_ ,” returned Jason, sneering, and not budging an inch from the spot, “And I don’t back off. You back off.”

“I’ll eat you alive.”

“Is that a threat or are you just making a pass at me.”

Roy narrowed his eyes most threateningly. “Trust me, buddy, if I was making a pass at you, you’d definitely know it.”

“That’s dumb, what does that even mean,” Jason retorted, moving his head a little to look at Roy directly with an expression of doubtful derision. 

“It clearly means that the thing I said before was a threat. You don’t get it because you’re dumb, you dumbass.”

“What are you doing calling me a dumbass when you’re the idiot, you idiot.”

From her own spot at the table, Donna, who had attempted to chime in at the beginning but soon given up when she had found the two of them evidently being too focus on their “conversation” to hear her, was just staring at them in dumbfounded wonder, and not seeming to be able to look away or do anything to break them off until she received a sudden message on her phone.

“Hey, guys?” she called out as she was quickly going through her message. There’s no response from either Roy or Jason, so she called out again, “Guys?”

““ ** _Yes,_** ”” at last the two of them answered concurrently, as they were pulling their eyes away from each other to Donna, after they had shot each other just one last menacing look.

Putting away her phone and drawing up from her seat at the table, Donna regretfully told them, “My co-worker just texted me about an emergency, I gotta go. Thank you for dinner, you guys, it’s great. I’ll catch you later.”

Promptly Roy stood up, as Donna was turning to leave. “I’ll walk you out.”

In the meanwhile, Jason also stood up from his own seat. “No, let me,” he said, quickly shoving his hand against Roy’s shoulder and trying to force him back to his seat.

Certainly, Roy would not to be forced to take a seat.

Holding his ground firmly, he stood having a little argument with Jason by their table--which lasted but a brief moment until he and Jason noted that, while they were arguing about which one of them should be the one walking her out, Donna was already hurrying out of the restaurant by herself.

In a rather funny mix of frustration and perplexity, Roy and Jason stood watching Donna away until she disappeared from sight. Then they sat down again at their originally table for three, now without the beautiful third person who was the sole reason for this dinner date.

Before either of them could say anything to the other, a waiter came up and, seeing that they had yet had their desserts, asked if they would like to make an order from the dessert menu.

They turned to stare a moment at each other.

Then looking back at the waiter, Jason nonchalantly said, “Sure.”

“Definitely,” said Roy at the same time, taking up the dessert menu from the waiter’s hand. It was awful enough that Donna had to take off early, there’s no reason for them to make this “date” even sadder by going home without desserts.

After a quick read inside the desserts menu, Roy passed the thing to Jason, who checked out the menu himself and said that everything seemed fine to him; so they ordered a piece of chocolate cake and a souffle eventually, for Roy kind of wanted to try both and that way he and Jason could just share.

A few moments later, as the desserts were served and they’re starting to dig in, Roy reasonably said to Jason that, seeing that he was the one making the dinner plan, he should definitely pay for this dinner.

“Can’t we just split the bill?” asked Jason ironically in reply.

“We can if I have enough money, which I don’t,” said Roy plainly and simply, “I just sent my car to a full repairing, and also I’ve already paid up my home loan this month.”

“Can you explain to me, just once more, about the reason that you had to buy a house in Gotham? ‘Cause I’m still not sure I understand why.”

“It’s a great house, what do you want me to say?” Roy answered in a quick grumble, unwilling to admit the fact that he did sometimes wonder if he had made a very dumb mistake by buying his house, which was big enough for a whole family and he was living it all by himself.

Jason regarded him skeptically. “You told me it’s a murder house.”

“Yeah but it’s not like it’s haunted or anything,” he argued, “I solved the murder myself, justice was served; so even if there ever was any angry spirits in there, I’m pretty sure they would’ve moved on by now. And besides, probability dictates that it’s damn near impossible for a house to went through a murder more than once, and you know what that means?”

“No, no I don’t think I know what any of that means.”

“That means my house is basically _murder-proof_.”

Instead of responding, Jason just stared dumbly at him.

“It’s not dumb,” Roy firmly told him.

“I didn’t say anything,” returned Jason, with but a faint curl in his lips and a little laughter in his eyes. “Anyway, what makes you think I have more money than you. We pretty much get the same pay at the GCPD.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have as many expenses as me. You’re living in an one-bedroom apartment by yourself, dude. And I’ve been to your place, it can’t be anything expensive.”

“It’s not. But just so you know, I’ve paid my rent for the entire year to my landlord last week. That’s a good deal of money.”

Surprised, Roy looked up from the piece of chocolate cake before him and turned to stare a moment into his partner’s face.

Then he said smiling, “...So you’re not planning to move away from this city any time this year.”

“Why? You wanna sell your house and move?” retorted Jason in a blunt but not entirely unfriendly manner, his eyes not looking at Roy just the moment but fixing on the souffle before him. 

Afterward he took a quick glimpse at Roy, and in a plain voice he went on explaining, “The landlord just came knocking on my door last week and told me my lease was due, so I wrote him a check to get him out of my hair. It doesn’t mean I’ve decided to spend the rest of my life in this city.”

In answer to that, Roy said nothing but just let out an short, agreeable hum.

It didn’t really matter to him why his partner had paid up a year’s rent anyway, he knew the guy wasn’t going to leave.

Staying at Gotham after everything with the Joker and Commissioner Wayne was certainly not an easy decision for Jason to make, but he had made it, and he had been sticking to it for almost two years by now no matter how extremely difficult it must have been for him, and surely there’s a lot of ups and downs in his current staying, but overall he was doing great, and right now Roy was just kind of feeling very glad of the fact that his partner was here. 

A shade of mild vexation came to Jason’s face as he took another glance at Roy, who at the moment was still staring at him and smiling. “...If I agree to pay for this dinner, will you just stop giving me that stupid smile?”

“It’s not a stupid smile, but okay,” he said gladly to Jason, as he turned slicing off with his dessert fork a good chunk of the chocolate cake before him, putting it to the plate in front of his partner and bringing back from there some of the souffle in return.

The desserts here really were just amazing; in fact, they were so good, he felt that they might just make up for the fact that he and his partner had to finish this dinner date alone without the actual date.

  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Since he hadn’t got his car with him at the moment, it seemed only natural to Roy that his partner should give him a ride home after the dinner. 

As he was helping himself to the backseat of the bike outside the restaurant, Jason, having already sat down on the driver seat with his red motorcycle helmet in his one hand, looked askance at him from the front and asked with a mildly sarcastic note in his voice, “...What are you doing?”

“What, you’re gonna ditch me again and let me go home by bus or something?” returned Roy blandly.

At the side of Jason’s bike there’s the spare helmet Roy had given him last Christmas, which was also red with the same shape style as the one in Jason’s hand, but unlike Jason’s own one that had got the black wing-like pattern on the front, it was red with a couple of golden stripes on both sides--Roy grabbed it up and put it over his own head, his eyes staring significantly at his partner all the while in a clear way to remind the guy that he should definitely know better than to try ditching him on the spot again like he had done earlier outside the police station just before their dinner.

In response, Jason sent him a little look which plainly expressed that he found the idea of being a giant asshole again and letting Roy go find himself his own ride home was pretty tempting; however, he made the wise decision to not be an giant asshole to Roy eventually, and after putting on his own helmet, he soon started his bike.

The night was still quite young by the time they arrived at Roy’s house at a nice little neighborhood in the Gotham Central. 

On stepping down the bike and putting back the spare helmet to its place, Roy absently asked his partner if he would want to come inside his house and watch some movies with him.

There’re still hours to pass before bedtime and he could think of no good thing he should be getting to in his own house just this moment. 

Usually, at this hour of the night when he found himself alone at home with nothing to do, he would just end up hooking up with someone; but it seemed quite clear to him that fooling around right after a date--even though the supposed date had taken off early and he was most doubtful that the whole thing could ever be called an actual romantic date at all--was a total douche move, and anyway he wasn’t really in the mood for casual sex right now.

Seeing that today was Tuesday and the two of them hadn’t been having a movie night together in the last couple of months except for every once a week on Friday, he was half-expecting Jason to turn down his invitation to movies at his house.

It was quite possible that he and Jason wouldn’t have still been seeing each other tonight if not for their dinner with Donna. The guy used to come to his house after work for movies and stuff a lot more, but ever since his recent breakup with his stewardess girlfriend Isabel, he had decided to spend more of his off time doing his own private stuff, which he obviously felt that he should keep away from Roy and not talk to him about or let him join in. Roy didn’t especially love the fact that his partner was keeping things from him, not quite because that the last time Jason had kept stuff away from him was when he had been plotting something crazy and utterly illegal, he trusted that Jason was no longer doing that kind of stuff, sure the guy still did a lot of questionable things on his own but none of those were truly awful or an actual murder; he didn’t love that Jason not let him in on things, for he felt that there shouldn’t be any secret between them, not after the last two years--He had grown to know a lot about Jason over the last two years; sometimes he kind of really felt like he knew the guy better than anyone else in the world, like he had the very key to his very truth, and he liked that, he liked knowing things about his partner.

Anyhow, the guy seemed okay to him and hadn’t really been distant with him of late, so Roy was pretty much cool with that, and like an adult, he had respected his partner’s privacy and given him all the space he seemingly needed at the moment, and he had not tried to hassle the guy into telling him what he had been up too lately and letting him join in as if he was somehow possessive about him and obsessed with knowing every single details of his life, no, no he was...no, he most certainly was not.

Much to Roy’s delight, the guy wasn’t currently in a hurry to get doing any of his secret private stuff.

Presently, having moved inside the house with the guy and told him briefly to go make himself at home, Roy, never could feel real comfortable in suits, turned right away to his bedroom upstairs to rid himself off of the nice gray suit he had put on for their previous dinner and change into something more cozy--he hadn't put on a tie tonight and neither had Jason; they both kind of hated ties. 

Shortly after, he returned to the living room in a red T-shirt and a pair of short pants. Jason had already settled himself down on his usual side of the couch before the TV, with a can of root beer he had taken out from Roy’s fridge sitting on the side table next to him and his own black suit jacket lying by him on the couch.

Once that Roy had come back into sight, the guy immediately grumbled to him about that little mashed potato stain Roy had previously gotten on his suit during the dinner.

“Look at this,” said Jason grimly, pulling a little at his suit jacket and showing Roy the stain on its front. “Look at what you did. You spilled your food on me, you know who spill food when they eat? Babies.”

“Yeah, and you’re crying about a little smudge on your pretty clothes because you’re not a baby at all, you’re such a grown-ass man,” returned Roy, snorting, before he went to pick up the TV remote.

Given that Jason had already chosen the movie for their last movie night, it was Roy’s turn to pick the movie this time, and he decided to be funny and take a pick from the romantic genre, which he and his partner had yet explored in their movie nights before, not really for the reason that the two of them were grown-ass dudes and it was quite weird for two dude friends to watch a romantic movie together, but for the fact that it just wasn’t their kind of movies. 

A dubious look came to Jason’s face as he realized what Roy was making them watch. “Seriously?”

“What? Is this the kind of stuff you ‘Gotham man’ can’t do because it may break your dark curse and turn you back into a huge pumpkin?” asked Roy rhetorically with manifested bemusement.

Jason returned with an unimpressed look, “The only true curse I’m suffering from is having to deal with you, an idiot.”

“The fact that you call it a curse when hanging out with me is obviously a privilege makes it very clear that you’re the real idiot,” Roy smartly answered. Then in a moment he continued, saying reassuringly to the guy as he turned resting himself down on his own spot of the couch in front of the TV, “A little romance won’t hurt, you may even pick up a few things. It won’t get you anywhere with Donna for sure, but you can still try to improve your romantic skill for someone else. And look at the leading lady--she’s pretty, and the guy’s pretty too. This film could be great.”

The film was not great; in fact, it was kind of really lame, he and Jason pretty much just spent the entire time during the movie fitfully commenting on how awful lame it was that the two leads who everyone could see right from the start were in love and going to end up together just kept ignoring their feelings for each other and wasting their time on someone else for no particularly good reason save for that they were both so used to being friends, while they were bickering about a number of things including who had the shittier taste in movies and which one of them would Donna have gone out with for a night tour in this city if she hadn’t had to leave early tonight.

Later, the movie was over and Jason left the house somewhere before midnight.

Once that the guy was gone, the house suddenly seemed to Roy a lot more emptier.

The TV in the living room was yet turned off at the moment, so there’s still a good deal of sound in the place; however, the sound was weightless, without any shape or life in it, and it filled up very little space in his fairly big house.

A familiar sense of loneliness gathered up from what appeared to be the many empty corners of the house and reached out to Roy, as he was now all alone at his own home. 

It was far from as awful a feeling as what he used to constantly feel when he had lived with Ollie in his old penthouse--which was not as enormous as the Queen family mansion the man had moved out of back when he had begun his initial career in the DA’s Office but had returned to live a while ago, but still it was plenty big and Roy had always felt ill with how awful empty and quiet the place would seem whenever Ollie had been off busying with his own work or his other passion projects of the moment, and since the man himself had been raised to not rely on any more helps than he actually needed and he had hired no one to help around the place except for the cleaning lady who would come everyday but only after Roy had left for school and would always disappear by the time he had come back, he had had absolutely no one at home with him.

One of the things he really missed about living at the Bikéyah in Arizona was that it was never empty; everyone pretty much lived closely together in the mountain, there’re always people around--not everyone in the old community loved him, sure, but they all knew him and he could very much talk to them without completely feeling like an alien as he used to feel a great deal back when he had just come to the cities and still had to struggle with his native accent and not really known how to talk like a normal white kid.

It used to make him feel small, being alone at home and all that; it used to drive him crazy. But he’s an adult now, not a small kid, and even though he still hadn’t quite learnt to love it, he had certainly learnt to live with that, he could pretty much stay alone and sleep alone--it wouldn’t kill him to not go out every single night looking for some company.

At last, having stayed in the living room and idly watching the TV by himself for some moments, Roy turned off the TV and set about for bed.

Before he switched off the light in the living room and moved on to his bedroom upstairs, he took one last look at the place, and he briefly wondered if his partner had ever felt lonely at his own little apartment as he would at his big house, and in the meanwhile he was also pondering about whether or not he should send Donna a message to see how she was doing with her work emergency.

Knowing that Donna was probably still quite busy at the moment, he eventually decided to leave it for tomorrow.

The next day morning, he sent Donna a message on her personal phone accordingly.

Donna replied to him later in the afternoon when she woke up from bed; it was clear that she had gotten quite exhausted from her emergency last night, which, as she explained to Roy in her message, was not entirely critical, but it had sure complicated her current mission and left her and her co-workers a lot more works to get busy with.

Naturally, Roy asked her in another message if she was okay and if she needed any help with her mission in Gotham, and told her that he and Jason would be more than happy to lend her a hand if she needed helps. Donna assured him that she was fine and told him not to be worried about her; she was grateful for his offer to help, but she was sure that she and her guys could handle things on their own, and in the end she said to Roy that she probably wouldn’t be free in the next couple of days, but once that she finished her work, she would definitely give him a call.

He didn’t heard from Donna again until his day off on Friday.

Same as most of their day off together, after finishing his own volunteer work at the local addiction center, he went to join Jason in the late afternoon in his routine exercise at the boxing gym, where the guy had started to visit regularly ever since he had come across it with Roy two years ago in investigating one of their earliest cases.

“Have you ever considered that maybe we should try working out together like a couple of gentlemen without all the wrestling each other and rubbing sweats on each other’s body for once? It may still be a lot of fun,” began Roy with a musing expression on his face, as he had came out of the locker room in his still currently clean and not stinking workout clothes and was making his way to the boxing ring, upon which his partner was waiting for him with his body perspiring already from his earlier warm-up.

“If you need to give your ass some rest, you could just say so,” replied Jason most understandingly, drawing up from the center of the ring to lean himself sideways against the post above Roy and looking down at him with a faint, gracious smile, “I don’t mind not wrecking your ass _all the time_ ; I think that thing’s suffered enough anyway.”

Roy moved his lips a little. “There’s a comedy club a few streets away, maybe you’ll want to go and talk to the manager there? I’m sure they’ll love to have a real funny guy like you up stage,” in a mildly sarcastic tone he said, while putting down his phone next to Jason’s on the table right beneath the boxing ring, and got up swiftly on the arena. 

In merely a few days, the two of them would be in the third year of their partnership, and yet the guy was still seemingly stuck with this ridiculous little idea in his head that just because he had spent some years training with a number of John Wick characters and acquainted himself with how to quickly kill a person with his bare hands and stuff, he could kick Roy’s ass anytime he wanted; surely, he was wrong and Roy was always happy to prove it.

Some moments later, when his phone rang, he had just broken Jason’s hold on him, flipped himself over on top of the guy, and was pressing him down on the floor with an arm above his throat and his own legs fixing tightly around his legs.

Having reluctantly disentangled himself from his partner and told the guy to hold on, he moved up to the edge of the ring and reached for his phone on the table underneath, frowning a little at the interruption at first, but soon broke into a broad smile as he took a look at the caller ID.

“Hey, stranger,” he answered the phone delightedly, turning to lean relaxed against the post at the corner of the boxing ring across his partner, who had already brought himself up on his feet again in a swift bounce.

It took but some seconds before Jason realized who he was talking to on the phone.

In a significant manner, he strolled across the ring to Roy, who saw at once that he was going to be an ass and tried to back him away by sending him a stern silent “ _no_ ” with his eyes.

Not acknowledging the signal Roy sent him, he leaned his face right next to Roy’s phone and said crisply, “Hi, Donna.”

Roy quickly lowered his phone to his side after telling Donna to hold on a second. “--Do you mind?”

“What? It’s Donna, isn’t it? I was just saying hi to her.”

“Yeah, and now that you said it, how about you back off a little and let _me_ talk to her.” 

In response to that, Jason let out a short, agreeable hum; then with pronounced defiance, he drew another deliberate step forward, fixing his eyes mockingly on Roy and planting himself straight before him at the corner of the boxing ring.

Roy pointed out flatly, “This is not backing off.” 

“No?”

“No.”

“Oh well,” concluded Jason with a bland face, still not moving a step back.

“So you’re not gonna--you’re not gonna move away. You’re just gonna stand here, okay,” grumbled Roy in mild vexation.

A vague wry smile was all the answer Jason gave him. Roy cast him an unamused look in return, then afterward he lifted up his phone again, determinedly ignoring his dumb, immature partner, and resumed his conversation with Donna, who asked him at once as he got back on the phone if she was catching him at a bad time.

“We can talk again later if you’re busy,” said Donna thoughtfully from the other side of the phone.

“No, no I’m not busying with anything at all,” Roy reassured her, his eyes riveting a meaningful stare on the guy before him, “There’s just this big, sweaty, stinky baby fussing all in my face, but I can handle him. We can talk, let’s talk--How’re you doing, Wonder Babe? Is everything good for you at work?”

Both he and Jason were pretty much steaming and soaked with sweat from their previous sparring.

It sure wasn’t easy to have a good conversation on the phone when there’s a sweaty, smelly dumb guy standing steaming before him at close range, not really doing anything in the proceeding moments except for staring at him fixedly with his sharp blue eyes while listening in on his phone call, his chest practically pressing against his, his hot skin glistening with sweat and stirring his own hot skin with its awful, awful heat, which would not be any distraction to Roy at all if he was actually grappling with the guy and he had got a match to focus on.

Nevertheless, he managed, and all the while he was talking to Donna, he stuck firmly to his spot with his steaming, sweaty man-baby of a partner right in his face at the corner of the boxing ring, much despite the fact that it was kind of really hot, and sticky, and smelly--It made his skin a bit itchy and he was feeling oddly sensitive to every drip of sweat running over his body, but he didn’t move away, for the obvious reason that he was no wuss and Jason was real crazy to think that he would ever be the one who backed away first.

A few moments later, he ended his phone call with Donna after they had agreed to have another dinner with each other at night.

“Where are you taking her?” asked Jason, soon as Roy had put down his phone.

Roy tossed him a smirk. “Why do you wanna know? You’re not joining us.”

Jason regarded him with distinct meaning. “You sure about that?”

“Well,” began Roy in a slow voice, the expression on his face turned notably thoughtful; “If you try asking me nicely, I _may_ consider bringing you along.”

“I’ve got a better idea--how about we get back on what we’ve been doing and I whip your ass until you beg me to come along,” drawled Jason mildly in reply, his lips shifting up into a kind of smile that was too sharp to be all nice but looked hell of nice on him.

So far, during his time in Gotham, Roy had yet encountered one actual hot day in this city, not even in the peak of summer; but although it wasn’t quite a hot day right now, the air-conditioning in this boxing gym was basically shit and it did very little to bring down anyone’s temperature.

Before Roy could make a reply, a single drop of sweat trickled down to the corner of Jason’s jaw from a thick, slightly curly lock of his damp, shiny, dark hair over his forehead, drawing its wet little body alongside his sharp smile in front of Roy in an especially mesmerizing way.

Roy licked his lips briefly, and felt a small, funny tingle when the blue eyes of his partner drifted right down in the direction of his mouth with its initially clear shade changing quickly to a more indescribable one.

The sharp smile on Jason’s lips grew faint. For a moment, he leaned his head a little bit forward, looking kind of as if he was having trouble remembering what he was supposed to be doing and about to take another step up to Roy, who was standing transfixed before him on his spot at the corner and kind of having trouble to recall what he was supposed to be doing as well.

Something caught up with Jason and he leaned back abruptly, hovering an instant between moving away altogether or staying in Roy’s space with a vague wrinkle in his brows and a glint of indecision in his eyes--both of which disappeared and an air of dignified ease settled itself upon him, as he resolved to keep being a bull-headed ass who knew nothing about the meaning of backing off and stick to his spot close before Roy, just not so close that Roy could feel the saltiness in that single drop of sweat on his firm jaw.

“...Hah,” Roy started again with a very much cool look on his face, after he had packed off from his head some uninvited images of himself and his partner doing some more wrestling with each other in some other completely different location and recovered the track to what they had been actually doing. “Nice try, man, but I’m not gonna do another match with you today. I’m all done today. I got your ass on the floor, I’ve already won.”

“You got me on the floor for less than a second” countered Jason with clear disdain, “I would’ve been wiping the floor with your face if you haven’t gone and answered your phone.”

Roy snorted. “Yeah, sure, whatever you like to tell yourself, I don’t care. I won, and now I’m gonna go take off this stinky clothes and get ready for my big date tonight.”

Afterward, having flashed Jason a curt smile, he moved around and slid swiftly out of the arena.

Jason followed him out in a moment. 

“Well you can braid your hair and put on your prettiest dress all you want, but you can’t take her anywhere better than where we ate the last time,” he said, somewhat haughtily, as he was heading toward the locker room with Roy. “--That place’s just been selected as Gotham’s best restaurant of the year.”

That sounded about right; it was indeed a remarkably nice place, reckoned Roy with a mild hum. Then he turned casting an inquiring look at Jason. “How would you even know about the place anyway? You never pay any attention to that kind of stuff.”

“Isabel told me about it. She and the guys at the airline chat a lot about what trending in where during their break. We’d just talked about maybe we should go try the place sometime before we called things off,” Jason answered with a bland expression, and on noting that Roy was staring at him from the side with a pair of meditative eyes, he demanded curtly, “--What?” 

“Nothing,” replied Roy, his tone grew softer.

It was pretty much the first time Jason voluntarily spoke about his ex-girlfriend since their breakup; although it didn’t seem to Roy that the guy was having trouble getting over her, he supposed that it would only be natural if he still missed her sometimes.

Roy didn't really know a lot about Isabel, for he had only met the woman a couple of times and Jason had never talked much about her with him when they had been dating.

However, he could see that she was a good woman and Jason did seem to enjoy dating her. As far as he knew, the guy didn’t go on dating a lot or care a lot about that sort of thing; his relationship with Isabel was apparently the only romantic relationship he had had so far since his return to Gotham--Sure romance might not be an especially important part in Jason’s very much complicated life and it might be true that he could very much live without romantic love like a lot of people whose lives weren’t nerely as complicated as his could, but still Roy felt like he should probably date more. It would be good for him, to finally get to experience something that he had never gotten the time and freedom to experience before, to have someone special, someone that could truly make him happy and bring more to his life so he wouldn’t have to live always with nothing but crimes and hardship.

In an easy voice, Roy spoke up again, as he had arrived at the locker room with Jason and was taking off his red sweat-soaked tank top while absently watching the guy doing the same with his own black one next to him by the bench, “...You know what? You could come join me and Donna tonight if you want.”

Jason’s look at him was reasonably skeptical. “Really?”

“Yeah. Her work here is all done, she has to fly back to Washington tomorrow and probably won’t be visiting this city again anytime soon; she wants us to spend some more time together before she leaves--I’m sure she’ll like you to join us. She actually thinks you’re cool. If you really wanna get to know her, tonight is your chance.”

Jason stared at him for a moment with a frown on his face. “...I thought you like her.”

“I do. I love her. She’s great,” Roy casually told him.

“Wow I don’t know what to say,” uttered the guy slowly, his expression turning a bit strange, “except that you’re a damn idiot.”

“Um, excuse me?” Roy threw him an incredulous look. “I think what you meant is ‘thank you, man, for being so cool’.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant exactly what I said,” Jason plainly assured him, and without giving him any further explanation, he turned putting away his dirty clothes, picking up a clean towel from the towel basket, and headed right off with it to the shower.

Having shoved his own dirty tank top into his gym bag on the bench and grabbed a towel with his hand also, Roy caught up with the guy quickly. “I thought you’ll be pleased,” he said, mildly exasperated and very much puzzled. “I just gave you the green light and you’re not happy about it? Why aren’t you happy about it? I thought you _want_ to hang out with Donna! You’ve been fighting with me for her for days!”

“I did want to hang out with her. I think she’s real pretty.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“There isn’t any problem,” replied Jason, somewhat coldly; his eyes not looking at Roy at all but staring straight ahead of himself. “I just don’t really care a lot about her. I barely even know her.”

“That’s the point of you joining us tonight, so you could get to know her better.”

“I’m not joining you.”

“But why?” Roy exclaimed, and turning to a bit of frustration when, instead of answering, Jason just ignored him and walked on toward the shower in silence. He reached out a hand promptly, seizing the guy by his elbow just as he was about to disappear into an empty shower stall.

Again he demanded, “Why.”

“-- _Because,_ ” started Jason much sternly, shooting a glare at his face.

“Because what?” Roy mildly rejoined, with his hand still clasping lightly to the guy, not feeling a bit concerned by his sudden burst of temper, for it just simply didn’t have any more effect on him than some goon with a gun, and also he reckoned for sure that the guy wasn’t really pissed at anything at all but was just getting a little annoyed at the instant.

Having stared grimly at Roy for a moment and seeing that it had done very much nothing, the guy then heaved out a sigh.

“...I don’t know Donna Troy and care about her like you do,” in a moderated attitude he continued, “She looks pretty and nice and that’s it. I’m sure she’s great like you said, but I don’t _need_ to spend time with her, Roy--I know what you’re trying to do, and I’m not saying I don’t appreciate it at all, but it’s dumb. I don’t need you to do this for me, you get it? It doesn’t really matter to me whether or not she and I hang out, it honestly makes no difference to me whatsoever if I never get to see her again. So let’s just drop this, all right? You obviously care a lot about her, and you want to get back with her, so just stop being an idiot and go by yourself tonight. Just go and have a nice date with her.”

Letting go of the guy’s elbow, Roy nodded his head slowly. “Alright.”

“Alright,” Jason emphasized in conclusion, then having given Roy one last strange look, he drew his eyes away and stepped presently into the stall for a shower.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Once again he turned fully to Donna, after they had finished ordering their food and the waitress had started away with the retrieved menus from their table in the Greek restaurant.

It was a small and slightly aged place, hardly the best restaurant in this particular area, much less the best in the entire city--there’s an Italian place right around the corner that was discernibly more popular and superior-looking; but it was the only Greek restaurant in town he knew of and it was very much lovely and the food here was said to be quite tasty.

A friend of his from the addiction treatment center had told him about this place some time ago and said that he should try it sometime if he was looking to do something different on a date. He had never come to this place before, since it was at a considerable distance from the Central, and as fun as trying something uncommon like Greek food might sound, he didn’t usually come all the way across the city just to get some exotic food. However, he had reckoned that Donna might like it and thus had texted his friend earlier for the address.

Back at the end of their original days together, he and Donna and the rest of the guys had all made a sacred vow that, no matter how far apart they might wind up in the future, they would never become strangers to one another--Though in the later days some of them, himself included, might groan in embarrassment at how utterly chessy it was when recalling themselves huddling together and declaring in chorus that their gang would be “forever”, there’s not a single one of them sappy goofballs had not been keeping the vow to the best of their ability.

The friendship between them was maintained as solid as before, and as Roy firmly believed, it would remain so even when they became a bunch of wrinkly old bags; but with everyone being in different places and having their own life and their own personal duties to attend to, they had not quite the liberty to have a group gathering as often as they would like and could stay in touch with each other on phone or social media mostly.

The last time he and Donna had reunited in person was almost three years ago when their old boy Garth had assembled the whole gang for his wedding. It was but a while after Donna had finally come to the truth that, unlike what she had always believed, her late American parents had no biological relation with her and that she was in fact originated in Greece, where she had visited consequently for a trip of self-discovery and unearthed a great deal about herself--Roy had learnt of this in their assisting Garth with his wedding at the time and it was pretty much all that he knew. For certain reasons, Donna couldn’t quite share her discovery in Greece with him or anyone; it was clear that she hadn’t especially felt psyched about what she had learnt in her land of origin or had much of a good time in there; but she did say to Roy during their private chat at the reunion before that she had developed quite a taste for Mediterranean food and would very much like for the two of them to try it together sometimes.

He was just reminiscing about their last reunion with Donna, who reckoned that the restaurant they were sitting in right now was absolutely delightful and was most pleased that he still remembered what she had told him before about the Mediterranean food, when he saw ahead of him through the window a tall, dark-haired guy in a brown leather jacket strolling down the evening street outside.

A glint of anticipation appeared in Roy’s eyes, and disappeared within the next second--It was no one he knew, which should only be right given that he didn’t know much of anyone in this part of the city and none except the friend who had given him the address of this place had any idea of where he would be having dinner tonight.

Somehow, it didn’t feel quite right to him though. It felt as if there’s something... _missing_.

Knowing intellectually that there’s nothing missing here at all, he moved his eyes off the window, throwing himself back into his chatting with Donna, and continued to talk to her in his regular breezy attitude about their former reunion at the wedding and the crazy, unforgettable incident at the night of the bachelor party, from which he and the boys had luckily rushed back in time for the big day and returned to the beautiful, anxiously waiting bride her awfully-groomed but otherwise intact and breathing groom “Gill Head”...actually, _Garth_ ; to whom Roy had given a sincere promise that he would never again called him any funny nickname, ever since that adventurous night during their last reunion he had found out to his complete shock that he guy had genuinely been upset by his still constantly ribbing him and calling him the dumb name when everyone else had seemingly grown out of that kind of horseplay already and mistaken his reason for doing it to be his having some spite against him, which could not be any further from the truth. 

He didn’t do it out of spite or malice, certainly not against the guy--He _loved_ that guy, as much as he loved Donna and Wingster and Twinkletoes and all the others. He had only done it because they’re chums and he had learnt by the example of a certain goateed loudmouth that it was a fun ageless custom for chums to call each other stupid names and rib each other stupid. He would’ve never behaved the way he had toward Garth if he had known that the guy would take it so seriously and be upset for real.

There’re a lot in his mannerism he had adopted from Ollie which made him seem more of a same piece with the man than his real son Connor was. The lack of commons between Ollie and himself had always been a grief to the guy, who had inherited very little from his old man except for the blond hair and the blue eyes and the pretty face; and when the two of them had first met, he had confided to Roy that, despite his Buddhist doctrine instructing him to be content with who he was and what was his truly no matter how seemingly few, and his recognition of the definite ugliness in Roy’s history with the old man and the fact that Ollie was hardly a great parent figure, he was unable to help himself from feeling just a little bit envious of Roy, of his getting to enter Ollie’s life at a young age and the long history and apparent qualities he shared with the man.

To Connor, even an inadequate father was better than no father at all. While Roy could sympathize with that, he was quite sure that even Ollie himself would agree it was only fortunate that his kid didn’t inherit much of his traits. Ollie’s a good man at heart and in many ways respectable, but he had sure got some bad traits; and at the time he had taken Roy in, he was too young to realize just how extremely powerful his influences could be on someone who looked up to him, nor had he had the slightest clue of how to wield his power wisely and be a decent role model--Not everything Roy had picked up from the man was strictly good. Certainly Ollie had taught him some valuable lessons of how to do good, but if he had ever made any sense out of those, it was probably because the tribe had showed to him since his babyhood the meaning of good and imparted in him some good basic values, by which he persisted in living all the way to these days...or at least he aimed to.

Who knew just what he might’ve become, if no one had ever provided him with those precious values in his beginning, if he wasn’t born in a state where at days the sun was always present and warm and the nights were never fully dark with the natural, lambent shine of the moon and stars that were tenderly watching over everyone and everything in the open sky.

Deep down he had always considered himself lucky, notwithstanding his weakest moments where it had seemed rather plain to him that he was cursed to be left behind by every single person he had ever been close to.

Dinah had always insisted that he had owned his sobriety to no one but himself, that he’s one of the strongest persons she had ever known, because only the strongest could overcome their own weaknesses. Even if he wasn’t wearing a badge and out fighting crimes, he was still every bit a hero, she said, and Roy would very much like to agree with her, really; but as proud as he was of what he had accomplished, he knew for a fact that there’re a great deal of people who had been dealt with a worse hand than him had succeeded in the same thing and more.

Ollie’s not being there when he had needed him had undoubtedly helped, as had the peer pressure and the infinite supplies anyone could easily get as long as they had still a shred of strength in them to come up with a payment of some kind, but in essence it was his own weakness that had fallen him to drugs and booze--Not everyone in his position would’ve done the same thing, he did what he did because he was what he was. And truly he was lucky, to not have to muddle through life without a friendly hand or two, or ever being made known by some kind and wise teachers that there’s always goodness in life and that he too had a shot to be good just as well as everybody else, so long as he was willing to try and take an aim at it.

It seemed most doubtful to Roy that he would still be the same or manage to do much good with his life, if he had to start out from somewhere worse, somewhere horrible like the many people he knew from the streets, many like Ollie’s current protege Mia (“--If you say ‘ ** _poor Mia_** ’, I will scream _so hard_ that you and everyone else in this house will not be complaining about Dinah’s bumping her lousy music anymore because none of you will notice a thing about it with your shattered eardrums,” had enunciated the girl grimly, when some time ago during his visit in Ollie’s he had learnt about the unfortunate diagnosis she had then just received and come to check up on her in her room. In answer he had assured Mia that he would never call or think of her as anything poor. She had already proven herself to be far more than just a poor soul. She’s brave, she’s a survivor, and moreover, she’s living and would for sure stay living all the way right to her very last breath).

How awful different he might become--would he still be able to do himself or anyone anything remotely good and proud, if he had ever been forced to struggle the way Mia had struggled, or if he was raised the same way as people like _Jason_ was, in a place most cold, most unforgiving, where crimes and violence were a constant, cruelty and egotism were easy to come by, and, according to his partner’s experience, a person in there could either fall themselves a prey or adopt the way of the predators.

When in hell it was only logical for a soul to find themselves acquaintance with the devils. No niceness should naturally grow in hellish places like the Crime Alley, weakness in there was a sin that was never to be tolerated and anyone save for the tough and vicious was to be chewed up--If there’s ever any good that could survive in places like that, reckoned Roy, it had got to be some hell of a good.

Instead of leaving his mind as he had expected, that odd, little distracting sense of vacancy from a moment ago reminded looming upon Roy imperceptibly.

Without his permission or even noticing, his eyes strayed off during his chattering with Donna at their table, stealing a quick searching glimpse of the street out front, and soon slinking themselves back to the friendly face before him as they found nothing significant outside--and again, drifted off momentarily and checked out the street some more, as if whatever Roy hadn’t exactly been waiting for might still turn up unannounced at any surprising moments.

Not long after their orders had been delivered, the waitress returned and laid up their starters and beverages on the table.

There’s this traditional Greek wine on the restaurant menu, something made with pine-needle resin that Donna had tried in her trip before and rather enjoyed the taste then. Roy had told her that she should order it, so she did, for she knew clearly that he didn’t mind it at all if someone was drinking in front of him, but he did mind it quite a bit when people’re making it seem like that the perseverance of his sobriety was somehow depending on them and not him and him only by acting differently and restraining themselves from enjoying some simple drinks in his presence.

For himself he had ordered a glass of iced cherryade which was said to be made with some homemade dark cherry syrup and supposedly delicious.

Albeit the food and her wine here didn’t quite taste the same as what she remembered from her trip before, they were just as good, said Donna delightedly to him from across the table. Then she turned to ask for his comment on his cherryade. 

“It’s pretty sweet, not unlike you and me,” with a quick, careless smile and very little thinking he replied, his once again wandering eyes settling themselves back from the window to Donna, who appeared to be most amused by his answer.

“I’ll bet that’s true,” said Donna’s sweet, agreeable voice, “so why don’t you actually try it now, oh sweet boy.”

In an instant puzzlement, he glanced down briefly at the glass of cherryade he was holding up close to his mouth but had yet taken any actual sip of.

Erasing all visible evidence of his embarrassment from his face, he raised his eyes again to Donna, looking right at her pleasantly ironic face as he silently caught the straw with his mouth, took a considerable slurp of his beverage, and repeated his answer in a most stately posture, “It’s pretty sweet, not unlike you and--”

“Oh hush you, speedy-shifty,” was his reward, accompanied by a laughing snort and a marinated olive Donna picked up from the mixed starter platter on the table and flung playfully at his way.

With effortless success, his mouth caught the projectile. “So? What is it?” continued Donna in a moment, as he was chewing the olive.

“What is what?”

“Do I look like a fool to you, Roy? It’s one thing that you’re not entirely here, but it’s something else altogether if you’re trying to trick me and pretend you’re with me all along and not have been distracted and kept looking at the street for the last few minutes,” returned Donna, who was certainly no fool, with mild accusation. “I know I’m not all sugar and spice and pretty ponytails anymore now that I’m getting close to my thirties, but I refuse to believe I’ve become such a hag that you have to secretly look for a way out from me. So, what is it? Are you expecting someone?”

“You’re still sugar and spice to me, blue eyes, and while I do adore the old ponytail, I definitely think you look more beautiful with your hair down and wearing your big woman suit,” he said with an easy smirk. Then he raised his hand briefly and went on with a sort of dismissive gesture, knowing from Donna’s simpering face before him that at the moment she still considered him pretty cute, but if he didn’t cut the crap soon and give her some real answer to her question, then she was likely to change her mind, “I’m not expecting anything at all. It’s just...well, I kind of told Jason that he could come join us today.”

“So he’s coming?”

“Nah,” answered Roy, a little obscurely.

Despite his attempt to keep it out, the recollection of his earlier exchange with his partner wedged itself back in his mind.

He tried to not think too much of it, but there’s something about that little scene that just really bugged him, not the fact that he had been called an ‘idiot’--though how the hell his being a good buddy and looking out for his partner’s welfare could be regarded as a act of idiocy was entirely beyond him--but that strange little look the guy had sent him at the end of their conversation. The guy didn’t lie when telling him the thing about Donna, Roy could see that, but the way he had stared at him with his deep blue eyes made Roy wonder if there’s something else he did not say, something more in his mind he had not been sharing.

What was it that dingbat was holding out on him and why was he holding it out on him? What the hell kind of huge secret couldn’t his partner entrust him with? A gnawing displeasure swelled inside Roy while he was thinking.

Reckoned that he was probably bothering himself to no purpose, he shook himself off of his thoughts quickly.

As far as he knew, it was quite common for the people in Gotham, especially the natives as it seemed, to carry in them the streaks of secretiveness and obduracy--even Dick, who wasn’t born here, had those streaks imprinted in him, and Jason, as he had said so himself, was ever bit a “Gotham man”. Roy was pretty much used to the Gotham people and their secretive streak, and although, for some inexplicable reason, he didn’t find it quite as easy for him to reconcile to Jason’s secretiveness as he had with the secretiveness of Dick, he certainly knew well enough when to leave things alone and didn’t normally let himself be bothered much by the secretiveness of his partner.

Whatever secret thoughts the guy was keeping in his own crazy noodle certainly didn’t seem to be anything _bad_ ; it’s probably nothing important anyway, but suppose it _was_ of some importance, then sure the guy would eventually share with him, Roy reassured himself optimistically, his hand reaching out for a piece of pita bread in the platter after he had finished with the olive.

From across the table Donna suggested to him mildly, “Why don’t you just call and ask your partner again, maybe he’ll change his mind and come to our dinner after all.”

A quizzical expression took form on Roy’s face. “And just why would I wanna do that?”

Donna shrugged. “You clearly want him to be here, or else you wouldn’t have invited him at all. Honestly, I didn’t expect you would’ve invited anyone. I I kind of thought you’d rather it just be you and me catching up, since your partner was already with us the last time and we didn’t really get to have some real conversation with each other then--Not that I mind it, of course. Last time was definitely... _something_ ,” at that she bit her lips slightly, in a not so successful attempt to hold back a snicker. “Anyway, it sure was fun to have your friend Jason around, he’s nice--Really, _really_ nice.”

“But not any nicer than _me_ ,” asserted Roy strongly, knowing that it wasn’t just his partner’s social manner Donna was referring to. “He’s _not bad_. He’s…” he drifted off a little, in search of a description for the guy that was not totally daft but wouldn’t make him sound anything like a softie when expressing it either.

His lips turned up as he continued, “...He may not seem much of it, but he’s a real good friend; he’s saved my ass plenty of times, not as much as _I_ saved his, of course--And I just thought maybe he could use some real good friend like you. That’s why I told him he should come along tonight, but apparently he’d just rather be a friendless wonder.”

A look of surprise passed Donna’s face; she stared at him a moment in contemplation.

“So it won’t bother you at all if your partner and I become…some special good friends,” in a soft, curious voice she asked. 

Initially, Roy was going to say “no”; he was well aware of the fact that Donna had other relationships during the long years since their separation and so had he, and he didn’t see any reason why he should feel anything but glad for her should she find someone special.

However, the easy “no” suddenly felt not quite so easy but gave a bitter taste of lies in his mouth, as the uncalled picture of his partner and Donna getting close with each other unfurled itself before him.

The picture had never come to his mind before during his little competition with the guy, which, as far as Roy was concerned, was just some dumb game like many other dumb games he and Jason frequently played with each other.

It was a nice enough picture, aesthetic-wise. It just didn’t rub him too nicely.

But so what if he wasn’t totally loving it, grunted Roy sarcastically to himself.

What could he do if his partner and Donna were to actually get together? Make them stay away from each other?

How the hell was he supposed to make the two of them do that or much of anything when he didn’t own either of them--when no one single person should ever be owned by any other person?

Every person should be free to make their own choices and be responsible for the choices they made, both Brave Bow and Ollie had respectively told him that in their own language before and they’re right. Besides, if Roy knew anything about the old lady Love, it was that she had never been anything but her own intractable mistress, no one could tell her where to be or when to be or how to be, certainly not him, and as he got older, he kind of grew to feel that it was probably not in owning but in sharing would she be truly nice.

Shoving the dumb, unpleasant picture off his mind, he shrugged his shoulders briefly and went for the most honest answer occurring to him, “I’m happy as long as you kids are both happy.”

Donna’s lips stretched up into a wry but tender smile.

“Listen to him, the old line-shooter, talking like a grownup,” she remarked, sighing to herself with exaggerated sentiment. “And after seeing the way you behaved around your buddy at our last dinner, I was actually afraid that you might’ve regressed to a _silly boy_ \--which certainly would’ve explained why you’ve decided to wear your hair long these days. Even _Dick_ felt he’s too old to wear long hair since he finished college.”

Roy stared at her in plain and total shock. “I get why you didn’t dig that stupid mop of Dick, but you can’t be seriously suggesting that you don’t dig this fine luxuriant mane of _mine_ ,” he remonstrated, quickly pushing back his long hair with a hand as if trying to shield them from any unwarranted insults.

For most of his early childhood, he had worn his hair long just like every male members in the tribe, and never once had he thought about cutting it short until he had met Ollie and been sent to the new city school where boys with long hair was a rare and not usually very popular species.

He might’ve just left his hair alone then, if he had already made friends with his long-haired high school best friend-slash-old bandleader Corey--a totally self-centered hedonist who could be a real asshole at times but usually had been a pretty fun guy with a charming devil-may-care attitude and a genuine disregard for things such as other people’s perception of him and the differences in appearance of each and every individual, which, in retrospect, was perhaps just a derivation of his ultimate self-centeredness, but at the time had made him seem nothing in Roy’s eyes except the most coolest, most accepting and open-minded kid in school and thus a pretty wonderful friend to have--However, since it wasn’t until a couple of years later did he come to know the guy and see that it was actually still possible for him to gain acceptance and make friends at school even if he didn’t look and talk the same as everybody else, he had cut his hair short in an attempt to fit in and not stand out any more badly than his tongue had already made him, and by the time he had joined Corey’s band, he had already gotten so used to the short hair that he didn’t think about growing out his hair again until years later when he had left the police academy.

The waitress, a matronly woman named Elena, made her way back to their table again with some more of their food from the kitchen. “How do you feel about my hair, Elena? You dig it?” Roy looked earnestly at her as she was laying down the delicious smelling dishes on the table.

With a hearty smile, Elena told him very nicely that his hair was great and that her husband would probably be a much more happier man if he could still find himself with half as much hair as he.

“See, Elena totally digs my mane,” he returned to Donna triumphantly, when Elena was heading off to pick up the empty plates from other tables. “Everybody digs my mane, I _rock_ the mane.”

Donna shook her head, laughing. “Oh gosh, you’re an idiot.”

“Hey just hold on a second, why on earth would you ever say something like that?” Roy knitted his brow together in assumed incredulity. “Ah I get it--it’s Jason, isn’t it? That asshole--it’s got to be him! He’s been talking to you behind my back. He taught you to call me that!”

Not bothering to give him any verbal answer, Donna just shook her head again and laughed some more.

The rest of the dinner proceeded in an atmosphere of consistent mirth and mutual affection so absolutely wonderful, that by the time it was over and he and Donna were walking arm in arm out of the restaurant, they were both practically glowing with contentment from the excellent time they had in enjoying such good food and good conversation with each other.

“I’m glad we’d got to do this,” said Donna, still unable to rest her lips from smiling at the moment, much despite of the sore she must’ve got in her face from all the previous laughing and smiling.

“We’ll do it again soon,” with a smile in his face also, Roy told her most certainly, unlocking his arm from Donna’s as they reached her rented bike at the roadside, and stood watching her getting up on the bike.

Naturally, he was going to ask Donna for a ride back to the Central, but before he could continue, he suddenly noted the similarity in movement between Donna’s straddling the rented bike and getting ready to ride away now and her straddling her bike and riding away on her own all those years ago not long after their breakup.

The memory of the two of them together was brought back shortly in Roy’s mind, and for a moment he couldn’t help but wonder what they would be--if all those years ago he hadn’t made a dumbass mistake by asking Donna to be his wife when she had still been struggling to figure out who she was as a person and had yet much too much to learn about herself before she could ever come close to decide whether or not she would in truth want to become a wife of anyone.

Now that she was older and with a lot more understanding about herself, Roy wondered if she had finally decided whether or not marriage was her thing. He had never thought to ask Donna about that; in fact, he had never even thought to ask Donna how she truly felt about him these days. 

Sitting up on the bike before him with a hand gripping the handlebar lightly, Donna paused in thought for a quick moment. Then again her face turned to Roy and she looked at him with her tender blue eyes gleaming in the street lights subtly but somewhat significantly.

“...It’s still pretty early, isn’t it,” said Donna’s tender voice, after she had made a little show of checking the time on her phone. “What do you say we go somewhere else together?”

It seemed to Roy that there’s but only one answer.

With pure and total pleasure he stepped forward, and answered after hopping up behind Donna on the bike with his hand settling loosely around her, “What else would I say but ‘hit it’, Wonder Babe?”

***

His eyes grew instinctively to alarm as he heard the knocking on his door.

It was almost ten-thirty already. He wasn’t expecting any visitors and could hardly imagine that it would be his next door neighbor coming to ask him for a bottle of salt.

People in this neighborhood, pretty much the same way as they had been since his original days here, had never got the habit to go around knocking on their neighbor’s door, certainly not for some neighborly contact. Most of the residents in his apartment building wouldn’t even bother to address their neighbors with a greeting glance, and since his occupation had come to their notice, was always trying to keep themselves as far away from him as possible.

The only persons in this building who had ever voluntarily spoken to him so far were the landlord--whom in the past two years Jason had seen two times in total; the first time when he had showed him the apartment and given him the key to the place and the second when he had dropped by a week ago to talk to him about his lease--and a junk slinger living at the floor below him, about his own age and had evidently some ambition, who had chatted him up at the elevator not long after he had moved in, seeing that he’s obviously too physically competent to be a low-level footboy like himself, and hoping that he could help raise his status by cutting him in to whatever of his big hustle or introducing him to some big game players who were looking for some young new blood and were more willing to give a scrawny underdog like him the chances to prove himself than the street gang for which he had been paddling junks had been willing to give him.

At the time, Jason had already assumed office at the GCPD and had his work equipment allotted to him; the glimpse of his police badge he had showed the guy offhandedly by pushing back the hem of his jacket and propping his hand on his waist had cut off the guy’s chattering to him on the instant, brought a look of mixed contempt and anxiety on his face and sent him shuffling off to the far side of the elevator, where, with his mouth set and not uttering anything in response to Jason’s proceeding encouragement for him to go on except a gruff “eat shit, pig”, he had stood rooted until he had reached his own floor, then soon as the elevator door had opened, he had scooted right away, leaving Jason to stare musingly after him while thinking to himself in a detached, caustic amusement of how very likely he would be chased away by the sight of a badge just like that when he was a young squirt himself. Afterward the guy had determinedly stayed clear from him, and given that the guy was pretty much a nobody and hadn’t committed any crimes in his presence, Jason hadn’t tried to approach him either.

There’s also this young woman, Jewel her stage name and Jane her real name, living three doors away, who had started to make advances to him ever since he had saved her from getting beaten up by her lousy ex-boyfriend at the hallway one evening.

After subduing the guy, Jason had hauled him back to the station and booked him in for disturbance and assault, but not for attacking a police officer, due to the fact that he didn’t exactly announced himself before he had knocked the guy down on the floor.

The guy had swung his fist at him the moment he had stepped in, and after Jason had sent him tumbling to the wall with a swift and relatively light thrust on his shoulder, he had surged up again and flung his fists at him even more furiously, so he had reacted the same way every normal person who disliked being attacked would. The thought that perhaps he should act more like a cop and try to cool the guy down by announcing himself instead of quipping while giving the guy a heavy punch in his nose didn’t quite reach him until the guy had been landed flat on the floor in dazing agony--In his defense, it was over a year ago, he had then still had a shedload of doubts about his position at the GCPD and often felt like he should just quit this stupid job as well as this whole damn city and go do his own thing. As far as Jason was concerned, a louse like that guy didn’t even deserve the right to ask for a band-aid for his broken nose; however, the law was much more lenient to scumbags than he, and knowing just what rights he had undeservedly got, the guy had filed a complaint against Jason shortly after his arrival at the station; but since Jason wasn’t the one who had thrown the first punch and the guy didn’t suffer one scrap of what he could’ve very easily suffered, it hadn’t caused him any more troubles than an usual conversation with the IA and an equally usual lecture from Gordon.

When Jason had told her to go make her statement at the police station for her ex’s case, Jane had said that she would do it, but she’s afraid that even her testimony for her ex’s assault against her was able to put the guy away, it wouldn’t be able to keep the guy away for long, and she couldn’t help but shudder at the thought of what the guy might do to her once he was free.

Jason had assured her then that her ex wouldn’t be bothering her for quite a while, and she hadn’t been bothered by the guy since.

Knowing a guy like her ex must have enough dirt to fill his own grave, Jason had assumed a little knocking and talking around the streets, and soon discovered the guy’s commission of an armed robbery with his buddies just a couple months back. There’s no evidence of the crime, nothing legal anyway; so he had invented some. Gordon didn’t attribute his magically finding from seemingly nowhere the incriminating proof of a crime committed by the same scum he had just happened to bring in some days before to anything but his used to be taught by the greatest detective in the world and his learning his lessons extremely well--and so would Roy have thought the same, if Jason didn’t betray himself by lapsing into silence when the guy had spoken to him about the “happy turns of events” and curiously asked for the details of the good detective works Jason had got to have done to obtain the evidence that could get his neighbor’s mean boyfriend put away in jail for years.

“What did you do this time?” had inquired Roy, once he had noted Jason’s telling silence and caught what’s inside; his voice getting wary at the moment but not condemning.

At first, Jason had considered lying; it would probably be better if he just lied and said that he had done absolutely nothing. He didn’t think for a moment that Roy would rat him out, seeing that all he had done then was helping to arrange for someone the jail time they had rightfully earned and it was pretty much nothing compared to the other stuff Roy knew he had done; but if he so much as admitted it to his partner, he would no doubt be putting on the guy a certain liability in the matter and he would much rather avoid that .

“...You don’t wanna know,” in spite of his reluctance of getting the guy involved, he had told his partner eventually, not denying that he had done something indeed. He could lie to Roy anytime just as easily as Roy could him, but only when it was about the little stuff which had got nothing to do with trust. It wouldn’t be right for him to lie to his partner about something real like that, not after everything the guy had done for him.

Roy had snorted at his answer. “If you’re thinking about changing your job, I highly recommend you to never go into the psychic business. Your mind reading skill sucks. I’ll very much want to know if my partner is going to get dishonorably discharged or even send to jail.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about me. I’m careful,” Jason had calmly reassured him. The gun slinging and ass kicking was what he excelled at, not detective works; but although he might not be the best student Bruce had ever had in his crime investigation class, he was in general an incredibly smart student and had sure learnt his detective lessons well. By teaching him how to be a good detective, Bruce the greatest detective in the world had passed to him a knowledge, greater than the average criminal masterminds could provide, of how to counter detection. “No one is gonna find out.”

“If you keep pulling this kind of stunt, I’m pretty sure someone eventually _will_ get wise and find out,” had grumbled Roy in reply.

Although what Jason had done was in no way to his liking, he sure didn’t hate to see a criminal in jail and unable to threaten his ex-girlfriend and anyone else for a considerable while.

Knowing full well that Jason could’ve easily done worse and seeming to derive some little contentment from the fact that he didn’t just ice the guy and get rid of his body, Roy had at last let out a resigned sigh, and said in a dry but much more easier voice, “Just so you know, I’m not planning to quit this job until I’m old enough for retirement.” 

Jason had stared at him in thought. “Does it mean you’ll quit your job if I get kicked out of the force, or you won’t ever quit your job, and If I’m out, then you and I are finally done?”

“What do you think, genius?” had retorted Roy, a little mockingly but without any actual concern.

Afterward, having reckoned that he had very much fulfilled his duty as the “responsible senior partner” and not seeing much point of further discussing the subject, he had moved the corner of his lips slyly, turning their conversation in a more casual direction and asking Jason how his “damsel in distress” neighbor looked like and just how grateful she was for his “heroic deed”. 

Somehow, the total lack of concern of the guy had struck Jason deeper than any reproach or punishment he had ever received before in his life. It was as if that, despite everything he already knew about him, the redhead just simply couldn’t see how Jason would completely fucked up his present life at the station by doing something inexcusably awful and he himself would be consequently facing the choices between quitting his own job and leave with Jason (suppose Jason wasn’t going to jail) or quitting Jason.

For reason too crazy for Jason to comprehend, his partner seemed to truly believe that he wasn’t just a criminal with a badge but something better.

What would Roy choose if he eventually prove him wrong and the day of choosing come? Jason had no idea. Nor had he any intend to find out, nor did he really care. The idea of his partner’s having to give up the job he loved for him and his partner’s giving on him both very much stank.

While he couldn’t quite manage to remove himself from the top of the IA’s watch list, he didn’t pull that same stunt he had pulled on his neighbor’s ex again, but had since been trying his best to keep his illegality to the minimum. It had been a long time since he had stopped imagining himself being a “good cop” like Bruce; but although he couldn’t quite see himself ever becoming a good cop, he wasn’t at all dull or blind, he could see full well that if he kept behaving like a complete criminal, then surely he would end up just like any other criminals: dead, in jail, having absolutely no one to hang out with except for the no-goods--which probably wouldn’t seem so bad to him if he never knew any good or had any good friend.

Most grateful of his rescue that night and his removal of her ex from her, Jane--Jewel (“--You can call me whatever you like, Detective Gorgeous,” had said the woman to him flirtatiously)--had offered him a free lapdance and said that if he didn’t feel like collecting it at her workplace, she would happily give it to him anytime anyplace he desired in private. Jason had declined her offer then, and declined again whenever she came to chat him up and offer him again.

It was clear that the woman had developed some keen interest in him. He had never responded to her in any way save for bland politeness. Not that he had any problem with how she made her money or that she wasn’t at all physically attractive, but she’s a methhead and apparently not the very bright sort, and the knowing that she honestly didn’t see what’s so bad about drugs or have any intention to quit had driven him to the same sour pity he used to always feel for his mom Catherine, which was enough to extinguish any flicker of desires he could possibly have for her.

Whoever currently outside of his apartment door was unlikely to be Jane, who wasn’t so lacking of smarts that she couldn’t see after some time the improbability of herself ever raising his interest and had enough self-respect to not force herself on someone uninterested--which, ironically, was what Jason found most appealing about her; if it was just for a bit of casual fun, people who was not the brightest could still be pretty attractive to him; but he was way too much of a proud guy himself, people who had absolutely no self-respect simply didn’t agree with him.

Though the woman still flashed him her sweet smile and greeted him quite sweetly whenever she saw him, she was no longer making blatant advances to him as she used to and certainly wouldn't come to him at night without some serious reason.

In front of him and the couch he had been lounging on, his police gun was lying in its holster on the corner of his usual eating table, next to it on the center were the remains of his dinner of pizza which he had finished a couple of hours ago.

Seeing that he wouldn’t be having dinner with his partner tonight as they had originally planned and he didn’t feel like eating outside on his own, he had at first thought about making the same casserole he had experimented in making last week.

He had hardly ever done any actual cooking before or cared enough to try, sure he knew how to cook and was practically a master chef in comparison to people like Bruce, but up until this point in his life, the only cooking he had ever conducted was done with the mere basic knowledge and the fewest of his effort and his time.

Mom had always been the one who cooked, back when the old man had still been around and she had had little to worry about except for being an acceptable wife at home and the drugs had yet become her imperative relief from stress and the heartbreaking loss of the man she had somehow actually loved but a relatively harmless recreation to her; then with the old man gone and her getting so tied up with the needles, pretty much all of Jason’s time had been spent between hustling for money and keeping his mom and himself alive, and he had simply had not the leisure or the financial ability or even mental ability for much of anything else, least of all trying to cook some nice meals at home. The only food he had ever cooked for himself and his mom at their old apartment was the cheap, fast and easy kind, anything nicer than that was just too much. Honestly, he probably wouldn’t even have cooked an egg back then if it wasn’t for his mom’s concerning health; if it was just him, he would’ve happily had burgers, the king of fast cheap food, every day and every night.

During his time at the manor, there’s always Alfred. He had hardly ever needed to do squat except studying and training with Bruce and working as his sidekick, nor had he really wanted to do any more beside those--Fighting crimes with Bruce and proving himself to the old man was all he had truly cared about at that point, and he had dedicated himself to his goal just as fully as the goal had required.

Not once during his time at the manor had he considered to learn to cook some proper nice meals, or pick up whatever sort of hobby kids at his age would usually have, or even go hang out with some other kids at his school (he had never wanted to hang out with anyone at his school. Everyone he had known at school were very much kids, and his kidhood had ceased to exist before he was ten; he had never felt like one of them, and he had had absolutely no interest to pretend he was)--And after the manor, he had had but one purpose in his life, which he certainly didn’t reach by goofing around in the kitchen.

The first time he had tried any actual home cooking was shortly after he had been brought into helping out in the soup kitchen at the eve of last thanksgiving with Roy, who didn’t need to leave for his regular holiday visit to Star until a day later.

Due to the terrible shortage of cooks at the time, the two of them had been allotted to make something each for the buffet. The gravy of Roy’s making had run out just a little bit faster than Jason’s roasted green beans on the serving, which, without doubt, was but a logical result of people usually more attracted to gravy than green beans, but Roy the dummy had misinterpreted it as himself being a superior cook than Jason, and refused to change his mind when Jason had patiently explained to him that his gravy didn’t get emptied faster than his green beans because it tasted so much more better (Jason had tasted it, it’s fine, for home cooking. It was definitely not something so incredibly good that he himself couldn’t easily surpass if putting an effort to). 

“It’s cool, Jaybird,” grinning his idiot grin, the guy had said to him in a pretentious cooing, “You’re pretty enough, so what if you can’t cook for shit? There’s got be some suckers out there who’ll be happy to cook for you.”

There’s no doubt in Jason’s mind that his partner was a big dumb sucker for actually thinking that he couldn’t cook for shit--Not only could he cook, he could cook just as splendidly as he did practically everything he ever made an effort to do.

Though he still ate a lot of his dinner outside and ordered a good deal of takeout, he had practiced some serious cooking from time to time and had improved his cooking considerably since.

The casserole he had learnt from the cooking website last time was pretty good; he had thought that maybe he should make it again, only this time get some of that fancy black pepper from the supermarket and increase the favor with it.

Notwithstanding the bit of fun he had lately discovered in cooking, he didn’t really so much as enjoy the act itself but the same sense of pride and accomplishment he felt every time when succeeding in things he had intended to succeed. The working alone in the kitchen and dealing with the dishes afterward gave him no better pleasure than lazing on the couch and eating pizza in front of the TV, which was what he and Roy always did on Friday, and today was Friday.

He had decided to order himself some pizza eventually--It was bad enough that he had to spend the evening on his own instead of enjoying himself in fraternizing with a pretty lady and getting Roy all ruffled in the meanwhile as he could easily be if his partner hadn’t been such an idiot, at the very least he should be given the pleasure of some good, simple, delicious pizza.

In case there might be troubles, he reached for his gun, picked it up from the table, and holding it down by his side in a relaxed but no less secure clasp as he left the couch for the door.

The vigilance on Jason’s face transformed at once to bemused surprise, once that he opened the door and found the partner he wasn’t at all expecting to see tonight standing outside with a lazy smirk on his face and looking as casual as if he was somehow expected to show up and meet Jason at this hour.

“Howdy, partner,” began Roy briskly. His lazy smirk grew sly as he took a downcast glance at Jason. “Ever so happy to see me, huh?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, partner--I’ve got my hard piece with me all the time and everyone who wants a taste of it can get me to raise it,” returned Jason with a faint snort, his gun moving up a little in a nonchalant gesture. A sniff was given to him in reply. He regarded his partner quizzically. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean what I’m doing here?” Roy seemed to find his question to be amusingly stupid. “It’s Friday, blockhead, it’s our movie night.” 

His answer did very much nothing to alleviate Jason’s confusion.

Brows furrowing, Jason opened his mouth again. Before he could continue his inquiring, the elevator out front climbed to his floor and slowly opened its metal mouth, from which walked Jane his neighbor, looking her usual in a pair of hot pants and a pink short jacket over her cute crop top.

Roy looked around shortly as the woman was moving across the hallway. “Hey, Janey,” he grinned. Without Jason’s knowing exactly when, he had somehow gotten familiar with the woman enough that the two of them naturally greeted each other by name.

“Hey, Roy, hey, Jay,” responded Jane delightedly, turning to a brief stop outside Jason’s door and flashing each of them her sweet smile.

“Hi, Jane,” Jason returned her smile with regular politeness.

Before him, his grinning partner was now meeting the woman face to face in an all too obvious attempt to further his chatting with her.

Having no intention himself to stand and watch Roy chatting up his neighbor by the door, Jason took a quick grab of his partner’s shoulder and pulled the guy inside his apartment shortly. 

“You know ‘Janey’ isn’t interested in your dumb ass, right? It’s me she likes,” in a mildly sarcastic tone he said, after closing the door behind them. 

“Poor pretty Janey,” remarked Roy with a sympathetic sigh, before he turned to cast a reassuring smirk at Jason, clearly aware of the woman’s condition and not so much of a huss or an idiot that he couldn’t see how totally idiotic it would be for him to get in bed with an active user, “No need to get jealous, it’s not _your_ dumb ass I wanna help her get over with. If your neighbor and I are ever going to spend some good time together, it’ll only be at the AT center.”

“Good luck trying to sweet talk her into joining the program or taking a trip to rehab,” said Jason dryly, skeptical of Roy’s chance of swaying the woman to quitting.

No doubt Roy could be quite a sweet talker, but Jane, as he had learnt from his previous exchange with her, was one of the type of people he had often encountered in the past--people who didn’t get nearly as frightened by whatever danger or misery that might come from their way of life as they were the thought of changing or giving up the life from which they gained a certain comfort and pleasure, spiritual or otherwise, they all but relished in and would hardly be talked in whichever ways into doing anything that might threaten their beloved lifestyle.

He had talked to Jane about joining the program once himself, in fact, and seeing how she just didn’t care for the idea at all, he didn’t push up the topic again, not simply because he had known for sure if he showed more enthusiasm about the woman’s life, he would only be encouraging her and giving her some wrong idea, but also because it was her life--he always disliked being told what to do or how to live his own life, so he didn’t normally feel like he should go around telling people what to do and how to live their life--if the woman wanted to spend the rest of her life in drugs and didn’t want to be helped, that’s pretty much her choice; he had neither the right nor the responsibility to her to help her any way against her will.

Nonetheless, after a bit of musing, he said to his partner, “I don’t think it’s very hopeful that you can talk her into getting some addiction treatment. I guess it won’t hurt if I try and talk to her again sometime. She’ll probably find the idea more appealing...if it comes from someone more appealing.”

“That’ll be nice, and uh, speaking of appealing, are you really sure you don’t wanna do something about that massive, not-so-appealing swelling of your head?” Roy replied, his lips drawing up into an ironic smile at the latter part of his speaking.

Without waiting for Jason to reply, he shifted his eyes to the table in the living room and turned at once to delight. “Oh Pizza! Did you leave me any?”

“Of course not,” answered Jason logically.

Mindless of his answer, Roy went on ahead, reaching the half-closed pizza box in but a few strides, and flipped open the lid without the slightest of hesitation. 

The one slice of pizza left inside the box brought up on the guy’s face a pleased grin. Not at all seeming to realize that it was not reserved for him, he picked up the slice of pizza, dropping himself down on the couch at the table, and started eating it. 

The moment he laid his swift paw on the slice of pizza, Jason, more as a matter of routine than out of actual annoyance, slapped on him a disapproving look, with hardly any expectation in him that it would deter the guy one bit better than any of the looks or words of disapproval he had so far given him for laying his hand on his food, which the guy had somehow reckoned that he had got an all-time claim on ever since the first time Jason had voluntarily bought him burger on a stakeout.

As expected, Roy just ignored his look, continued to sit comfortably munching the slice of pizza while dumbly murmuring his disagreement at the horror show Jason had been previously watching on the TV.

Not at all excited with the current program, he reached out his spare hand for the TV remote next to the empty cup of soda and the now empty pizza box from Jason’s finished dinner on the table.

“Aren’t you supposed to have had dinner already?” asked Jason in doubtful bemusement, after he had moved the remote out of Roy’s reach and settled himself down on the couch beside him. 

“Yeah, but it’s pizza. I always have room for pizza,” and with that, he finished the whole slice of Jason’s leftover pizza, licked the smear of tomato sauce off the tips of his fingers, then waved his hand protestingly at the TV. “Why should we be watching this, it looks gross.”

“It’s nothing scary, really,” Jason nicely told him.

“What, I don’t think it’s scary. I never said anything about scary. I just said it looks gross. And it’s a TV show, isn’t it? It’s not even a _movie_ \--shouldn’t we be watching movies on movie night?” returned Roy, a little defensively, and conveniently forgetting about the number of times they had spent their “movie night” bingeing whatever TV shows they had felt like bingeing at the time instead of actually watching movies.

“We can watch something else if you think you’re going to get scared,” said Jason, still more nicely, and grinning a little as he received a sulky look from his partner in reply.

“How many times do I have to explain to you? I only spilled some popcorn on myself that _one time_ because I had _cramp_ , not because I was scared by that dumb horror film you made us watch,” returned Roy grumpily, folding his arms over his chest and pressing himself deeper in his spot on the couch in a rigid readiness to stick watching what was already on Jason’s TV. 

“Have I ever argued and said I don’t believe you? I totally believe you, Roy. You see loads of scary shit at work, you live in a murder house for fuck’s sake--How stupid has it got to be for you to ever get spooked by some dumb stuff on the media?” answered Jason in his most agreeable tone, which didn’t seem especially agreeable to Roy, who grunted his grudging agreement at his kindly spoken words.

Having enough amusement in toying with his partner--which was no doubt one of the most greatest source of amusement he had ever come to and he had long since become quite an expert of--he turned to look at the guy more closely, his laughing eyes growing soberer and discerning. “How’s your dinner with Donna anyway?”

Immediately Roy’s expression brightened. “Wonderful.”

“But not so wonderful that the two of you decided to go somewhere else after dinner?” observed Jason, not entirely convinced. The smile on Roy’s face seemed pretty genuine to him and he couldn’t really think of one good reason why the guy should be lying about having a nice date with his friend...Ex...whatever the two of them were calling themselves these days--But then again, the redhead did kind of have a record of lying about things he had little reason to lie about.

“Nah, we did go somewhere else together,” Roy happily told him, “We went to get some froyo. I thought about bringing you one, but it’d just turn into a cup of regular yogurt on my way here.”

“What’s wrong with regular yogurt? I can have some regular yogurt,” Jason absently replied, looking at Roy’s face for a couple more seconds with his well-trained eyes, not really worried that his partner might be sitting in some secret agony from a bad frustrating date, but simply confused as to why the guy wasn’t with his date right now if things had indeed been as good as he said. 

Nothing his eyes could find on Roy seemed to contradict his story. Knowing Roy and how speedy he usually was in jumping into bed with someone, Jason had naturally assumed that the guy might end up spending the entire evening with his “Wonder Babe”, or at least be consumed enough by his occupation with her that Jason wouldn’t see or heard from him again before work tomorrow.

Guessed he was wrong then, shrugged Jason to himself, as his eyes on Roy fell back from watchfulness to easiness. 

“She’s getting too smart for your old tricks, huh?” with a teasing smirk he started, not at all unhappy that things didn’t turn out as he had originally expected and feeling all free to razz his partner now as he was certain that the guy was totally fine. “Seems like you’re really not as good a shot as you think--If I’ve known you’re just going to flunk it, I would’ve happily taken a shot myself.”

“I’m a far better shot than you’re ever going to be, cowboy,” countered Roy with a snort. “And I did offer you a shot, didn’t I? You’re the one who got all grumpy and said I should go by myself. If I’ve known you’re going to call me an idiot for trying to help you find love, I wouldn’t have invited you to go have dinner with me and Donna. I would’ve just brought you to Star with me the next time I visit, and introduced you to my adopted brother--You and him should be friends. You spent some time in some sort of monastery before and he used to be a monk, and you two can sure have some real fun talking to each other about how to turn down every romantic opportunity.”

“I dated, remember? If I’ve turned down every romantic opportunity, then I wouldn’t have dated at all, would I? You bozo,” Jason tersely returned. “--My love life is not a bit of your concern. I don’t ever need you to worry for me about it.”

It had apparently come out a little harsher than intended, for Roy’s mouth lost all of its original humor and set into a sullen line on the instant.

“I didn’t mean...” started Jason, moderated at once.

Ruffling Roy’s feather and getting him a little hot under the collar was perfectly fun--the redhead kind of looked...really nice, when he got a little hot under the collar; but actually upsetting him was something else entirely.

While he was still struggling for remediation of some kind, Roy’s set mouth uttered, “I should probably go home, it’s getting late.”

No doubt this was but a dumb little unpleasantry to Roy and by tomorrow morning it would be completely out of his head. The guy was generally pretty good-tempered, but like most redheads, he did have a bit of temper of his own, which, as far as Jason knew, came rather fast when roused but faded just as fast. It would be most cool if he just let the redhead go and sleep it off on his own. Nothing would change between them later even if he didn’t do squat about it now, Jason was sure of that.

“...You said you’re not scared at this sort of things, but only five minutes into watching this show with me, you’re trying to bounce,” muttered Jason softly, his hand next to Roy stretching out and getting the redhead to remain on his spot on the couch with a light clasp on his forearm as he started to rise onto his feet.

Around his eyes shifted to the face of his partner, still unnaturally set and unresponsive and showing only its side to Jason at the moment, looked into it briefly, then drifted down again, with his hand sliding off from Roy’s arm in the meantime, after it had given the arm a small gentle squeeze which carried out a certain goodwill Roy recognized without fail.

“I’m not...telling you to stay out of my business,” he began again, very clearly and slowly, as the redhead turned his now pacified face to him, “You know I’m done wasting my breath telling you that, and I...do, appreciate, that you’ve thought about me and wanted to do me a solid or whatever, it just...It’s kind of your fault, actually, I would’ve left you and Donna Troy alone last time if you’d just talk to me like an adult and say that you want to be left alone with her instead of acting like a jackass. I never really wanted to steal her away from you or anything. I like her, sure, but not any more than I’ll like any other nice lookers and definitely not more than you...like her. I mean, you love her, apparently, and you’ve got loads of history with her. And I don’t know, maybe you two can be a couple again and finally get married this time, and how come it isn’t totally dumb that you have to give that up for me? You honestly think I’m gonna love that? Why the hell can’t you just mind less about me, or anyone else, and more about making yourself happy?”

On speaking he looked squarely at his partner’s face, and he didn’t looked away after he was finished, just kept his eyes on Roy for a moment, as the guy was looking deep into his face with his green eyes musing and a pleasant gleam in them telling Jason that, unlike earlier in the semi-public where his pride had messed around and blocked him from fully expressing himself as it liked to do, his message this time was more clearly and properly delivered and was taken in the spirit in which it was intended--It was far less as hard to ease his pride and get it out of his way when it’s just the two of them.

At last Roy spoke in a bland voice, “What makes you think I’m not happy? And what the hell do you mean I acted like a jackass. I totally acted like an adult and I tried very hard to have an adult to adult talk with you about Donna. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s definitely yours, not mine--You’re the one who had to be a brat and wouldn’t listen to me, you dumb brat.”

“Don’t call me a brat,” grumbled Jason with a kick at the guy’s foot.

“Why not? You even kick like a brat,” Roy returned, smirking, and drawing from his side of the couch to give Jason a little slap on his head with his swift hand.

Jason grunted his annoyance most clearly, which went past the guy like a breeze.

Pressing his side lazily against Jason with his arm now hanging over Jason’s shoulders, the redhead carried on presently in a more thoughtful manner, “You know, I don’t think I really wanna get back with Donna.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, I do love her, just not quite in the same way as before. It feels like it’s in a family sort of way more than anything now--Not that I wouldn’t still want to go to bed with her again if she’s interested. Why wouldn’t I? She’s a damn goddess and I’m not in a relationship with anyone. And I suppose it’d be nice to have a relationship with her again, it’s just...”

“It’s just what?” prompted Jason, intrigued.

It was actually not that usual for Roy to speak to him about this sort of thing on his own accord. Sure he talked a good deal and babbled a good deal about women, and sometimes guys, but never had he let on what he truly wanted from them besides the casual stuff, and most of the things he had talked to Jason about was very much selective and hardly ever about himself.

He had told Jason about the cause of his breakup with his last girlfriend Kendra back when they had just broken up, but nothing deeper than that had he once cared to mention--Sometimes Jason felt that it was kind of unfair, that his partner could always manage to get him into talking about himself, about things he had little intention to share in the first place, but two years into knowing and partnering with each other, the tricky hustling asshole didn’t even seem to think of telling him unprompted about things such as why he had transferred himself to Gotham instead of staying at his old station in New York.

Roy didn’t continue until he stared absently at the TV before him for some seconds.

“Ollie and his lady...they’re partners, you see,” in a slow voice he started, as he was finished gathering his own thoughts. “I don’t know if the two of them will ever actually get married, but it always seems to me that they’re this type of couple, who will always be partners and share their life with each other like partners, even though they never tie the knot and make themselves husband and wife to each other. And Donna...I didn’t notice it when we’re together, but there’s a part of her life, a part of her that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to share, and even if she and I somehow get married, I still probably won’t be able to become her partner any more than I’ll ever become _Kendra Saunders_ ’ partner. I’ll...more likely to just be that guy she married. And I don’t know--It’s probably fine. We’ll probably still be perfectly happy together. It just...I just kinda feel that it’ll be real nice, you know, to have a life that’s ‘ours’ with someone, a life where I’m the equal partner, and not just some sort of... _supporting cast_ , like a _sidekick_ or something, in that someone’s life.”

Afterward his green eyes fixed a meaningful look on Jason, who had been quietly and attentively listening in.

“I don’t think I need to tell you that what you just heard was classified. If you ever tell a living soul about it, Jaybird--there’ll be consequences,” he told Jason with great solemnity, as his arm over Jason’s shoulder lifted its hand a little and flicked its fingers lightly at the side of Jason’s face by way of emphasizing.

Frowning in disapproval at the assault of his face from Roy’s hand but not quite doing anything to stop it or removing himself out of its reach, Jason gravely answered, “Your secret is safe with me if you be a good doll and quit this sort of jackass behavior at once.” 

“ _You_ be a good doll and treat your elder with respect,” returned Roy quickly with a snicker. His hand was now mussing up Jason’s hair.

It was most natural that his attempt to get the redhead to quit was in vain, considering how very little mind and effort it was made with. The hand on his head was pleasantly soft, not in texture but in the stuff underneath, and the swimming of the nimble calloused fingers in his hair was anything but awful.

A moment later, as he finished messing with Jason’s hair to his heart content, the redhead rested his arm again over Jason’s shoulders, turned regarding Jason more thoughtfully from the side and continued, “It’s been months since you broke up with Isabel, and I’ve never heard you say you’re going out on a date or show any interest to anyone this whole time except Donna. Why don’t you go out and see some pretty girls--or boys?--Don’t you wanna meet someone?”

“I met people,” replied Jason vaguely. Roy’s brows furrowed in bemusement. 

“Yeah? What sort of people?” 

“Just people,” he told Roy, in whose eyes he could see clearly that he was much inclined to pry deeper in the subject.

Not at all inclined to tell his partner about the people he had been randomly meeting these past few months and what sort of things he had casually done with them, he drew Roy’s attention off it by saying, “It’s nice dating Isabel. She’s a good person.”

“She sure seems so,” said Roy with an agreeable hum. “Why did you guys break things off anyway? You never told me that.”

Jason shrugged. “We just don’t want the same things, I guess. She and I were having dinner the night we decided to call things off--She just got invited to one of her colleague’s wedding at Coast. She asked me if I’d go be her plus one during the dinner, and after I told her I could go if I’m not busy with work, she gave me this little look and asked if I do go, would I go as her boyfriend. And I--”

“No wait don’t tell me,” interjected Roy with a mildly ironic curl in his lips; “You told her you ‘ _don’t do boyfriend’_ , didn’t you?” The little imitation he made of Jason was definitely not as good as he himself seemed to think.

In return Jason tossed him a most unimpressed look. “I didn’t tell her that, you idiot,” he said, “I didn’t...really say anything, actually, and she seems to get it. And just for the record, I didn’t _not_ want to be her boyfriend. I don’t mind being her boyfriend; it’s not like I was screwing around or anything while she and I were dating anyway. I just don’t think I can ever be the boyfriend she wants. She seems to want something serious, something...more like that type of things between your adopted dad and his girlfriend you just told me about, if not that exactly. And I just don’t think she and I can ever do that.”

“Why not?”

“You know why,” returned Jason flatly, his expression soberer. “You know how this life we live isn’t for everybody, how damn crazy it can seem to someone who doesn’t live this sort of life. She can never fit into this, and besides, it’s not really fair to her, isn’t it? That I can never be totally honest with her and let her know what things I’ve done before.”

“It’s done, Jay. It’s all in the past,” Roy gently pointed out. “Does it really matter whether or not she knows?”

“Maybe it doesn't,” he responded in a even tone, “But I’d put my life on doing it, Roy. All those time I’d spent training my ass off and working my ass off, the lengths I went to just to pull off that one thing--It may not be the most glorious thing to ever be done and I suppose I could really have done it in a better way, but the fact is I’ve done it, and it’s damn huge to me. It’s one of the most hugest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and if she doesn’t know that, then she’ll probably never really know me, now will she?”

While he was saying, Roy shifted himself from his side and straightened his own back a little to meet him face to face on the couch. His arm around Jason slipped off accordingly in his moving, its hand which had been hanging drooped over Jason’s shoulder drew to somewhere under the back of Jason’s neck and perching upon it gently and quietly.

A moment’s looking into Jason’s face, then again he leaned himself lazily against Jason’s side; his arm returned to its previous position, but with its hand rested down this time on the spot between Jason’s neck and shoulder. “I suppose you’re right,” he rejoined in an easy voice.

“Of course I’m right,” came Jason’s instant reply, at which Roy sniffed. His dumb hand brushed its thumb in a absentminded way about Jason’s shoulder.

The nearness between himself and his partner suddenly came extremely clear to Jason.

Although it was in nowhere near awful, it did start to feel a bit too much. He wished the redhead would quit his touching of him and back away a little already--the couch in his place was a lot smaller than the one in Roy’s, but he’s sure there’s still plenty of space for the two of them to sit at an socially appropriate distance from each other. He tried to ignore it, dragging his eyes to the horror show neither he nor Roy had been watching on his TV in the front, and focused his senses to elsewhere as he always did whenever the two of them were hanging out at their movie nights and the guy was getting a bit too close and throwing at him too much of his playful touches.

It stirred up something in him he didn’t like--well he didn’t _not_ like, exactly, but it just felt too much like an invitation, and he could see for certain that it wasn’t any invitation. It never was.

Since he was bi and not at all dead and Roy was...Roy, it was only perfectly normal that he had got some interesting thoughts about his partner occasionally. No doubt Roy too occasionally had got had some very interesting thoughts about him, he could see it in his face every now and again, those sudden funny changes in his expression. But he had never acted upon it. And the fact that he had never attempted to do anything about those thoughts had made it clear to Jason that his partner’s interest in him was no more special than what he and any person would normally have for someone they found attractive but were simply not compelled enough to get themselves involved with.

Jason didn’t even need to be trained by any super detective to tell, his own smarts and common sense was enough for him to make the simple analysis on whether or not someone was sending him signals. And there’s no signals in his partner’s current doing, there’s hardly even any intention in it. 

The redhead had never touched him in any way save for the artless one a kid would a furry funny creature they deemed adorable and itched to pet.

He would very much like to show the redhead what a ‘furry funny creature’ he was--if only he could come up with a way to do it without the risk of embarrassing himself. He couldn’t level with Roy and let him know what effect his dumb touches truly had on him, it would be embarrassing for sure and his pride couldn’t take that.

He could always snap at his hand, he supposed, which would be enough to get the guy to keep his hands off him. His attitude to him wouldn’t really change much after that, there would only be no more of the casual touching, no more of the definite affection it expressed which was a lot worse than any physical feel from it.

While he was working to move himself--for Roy certainly didn’t seem to have any intention to move his dumb ass--Roy cogitated for some seconds, his warm hand brushed about Jason’s shoulder, still more softly and absentmindedly without cease. “I guess it’s okay if you’re not too eager to get in the dating field at the moment,” he accounted lastly in a pleasant resignation, “You’ll find someone, eventually.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” responded Jason dryly and absently, still striving to move his rebellious body away from the awful hold of the warm, dumb, affectionate hand on his shoulder.

“You’re no Donna Troy, that’s for sure,” Roy added on in a playful tone, turning to look Jason in the eye with a warm and horribly affectionate glint in his own green eyes; his hand broke off its mildness brushing on Jason’s shoulder, gliding up shortly to the back of Jason’s head and giving his hair a brief, gentle stroke, “...but you’re pretty good too.”

Jason’s face grew instantly ironic. “Am I?” he retorted, the clear, significant meaning in the guy’s words quickly washed him off from the funny feelings in him to cold doubts.

“Hey I didn’t say you’re lawful, or that you’re not a little crazy, or an asshole,” responded Roy with simple easiness. “But even an unlawful crazy asshole can do good. You’ve done some bad stuff, there’s no argument there--but you’ve done a lot of good too, Jason, you’re a lot of good.”

“And you’re an idiot,” grunted Jason’s voice, somewhat strained and deepened peculiarly by the hard, abrupt seizing in his chest.

A force more powerful than all those nettling thoughts and feelings he had fought before and never once lost himself to moved him--just a little bit forward--in the direction he had spent the past few minutes pulling himself away from.

The thought of sex had always been the most easiest to fight. Though he didn’t bear any more pride in his own look than he in his smarts and talents, he was well aware of how himself looked like--there’re plenty of sexual opportunities for a guy like him and he certainly wasn’t at all shy of seizing whatever opportunity he saw fit; as far as he was concerned, sex had little difference than stuff like food or money, and he had long since learnt that if he ever wanted some money and food, he had better just go and get some.

He didn’t _need_ to have sex with his partner, just like his partner, with his more than sufficient options, surely didn’t need him as a playmate.

Those awful feelings, on the other hand--they were a most unfamiliar foe, more difficult to deal with, and they seemed to be at their worst tonight.

Jason’s head tilted and leaned itself slightly forward as if on its own accord, and on a sudden the side of his partner’s nicely freckled face was right before his nose, his lips near the corner of his partner’s frequently smiling lips.

They weren’t smiling at the moment, those lips, they grew curious before Jason and was asking him in a very soft, very peculiar whisper, “...I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but you’re kinda being really close right now.”

“I am?”

“Yeah, I think so,” said Roy, still whispering softly and peculiarly. While he spoke, his face turned marginally to Jason as if to meet him in the eye, and soon stilled itself as the corner of his mouth came upon the corner of Jason’s. 

“Maybe you should back off then,” Jason told him, carrying in his own voice the same peculiar softness. It was simply inevitable that his lips scraped some freckled skin in his speaking, for the freckled skin was just kind of right there where his lips hovered.

Moving himself neither forward nor backward, Roy asked neutrally in reply, “Shouldn’t _you_ back off?” 

“I told you, I don’t back off,” was surely Jason’s answer. 

A chuckle responded him, accompanied by a sweet delicious smile which his lips, warmed by the nice freckled skin growing warmer before them, were itching to taste and thus moved shortly to get themselves a taste of its deliciousness.

The pressing of his mouth against the corner of Roy’s was answered by a brief pressing back.

“...I know you’ve probably pictured me naked before, but I thought you don’t actually want this,” murmured Roy’s mouth presently, as Jason made no more movement but just nested his lips against its warm corner. “You’re usually pretty straightforward about what you want, and you’ve never said or done anything.”

“You’ve never said or done anything,” returned Jason in a murmur. Then in a way to show that he did very much want it, he drew his mouth to the center of Roy’s, kneading here and there about its supple rims, and in a moment extended himself slowly and surely inside the small but most inviting opening.

A greatest welcome he received from the redhead, whose hand upon him swiftly moved from his shoulder to cup the back of his head, while his other hand flew up from his own side to get a good hold of Jason’s upper thigh near himself. 

It didn’t take long before the warmth of Jason’s lips spread through the rest of him.

On and on he was spurred, by the awful incredible responses of the mouth of Roy, the bits of low, delightful songs sounding fitfully from the deep of Roy’s throat, the stroking and grazing of his fingers in his hair, and the rubbing and squeezing on the spot of his thigh painfully close to the place that could definitely use some rubbing and squeezing.

His own hands were now too on his partner, one pressing him close by his hip and one driving itself under the annoying fabric of his red T-shirt and reaching the bare, evidently sensitive skin of Roy’s lower back.

He was just about to gather up enough of his strength to pull his mouth away from Roy’s and proceeded his expedition on other parts of the guy that he’s sure would be equally fun to explore, when Roy, who always seemed to feel that being a couple of years older meant it was pretty much his job to be the responsible one, broke them off rudely in what apparently was an attempt to act responsible.

“We should,” started the older guy in a wonderfully husky voice, then stopped to clear his throat and lick his lips quickly. “We should probably talk about this, Jay, just in case we’re not on the same page. Let’s talk about this.”

An annoyed grunt escaped Jason’s throat, for this was annoying. His head dropped itself down on the crook of Roy’s neck in immediate frustration.

“ _Now?_ ” he contested, his voice was just as husky as Roy’s at the moment, and probably sounding a lot more whinier than he meant to make himself sound. 

Happily, the whining sound seemed to hit Roy good.

“Or tomorrow,” he relented pathetically, turning his head a little so his mouth could nestle on the thicket of Jason’s hair.

He smiled in the crook of his partner’s neck. “Tomorrow sounds great,” he answered contentedly, before he got back on doing what he would very much love to do right this moment. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I could probably make it unrelated to the cop AU, but I just don't wanna. I want this for my cop Jayroy; I'm very devoted to them and I hate myself so much for that.
> 
> Anyway, thanking you for reading!


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